Water Over Stone
by Cleo the Muse
Summary: Vala is not a woman known for her patience, but when it comes to Daniel, her persistence knows no bounds. Daniel, however, is just as stubborn. When a mission offworld goes awry, they're going to need all their collective determination to survive!
1. Part 1 of 4

**Water Over Stone** by Cleo the Muse  
Rating: Mature  
Genre: Het (Daniel/Vala), Action/Adventure, First Time, Hurt/Comfort, Romance  
Warnings: Language, Sexual Situations, and Violence  
Episodes: post-series; spoilers for most of season ten, minor spoilers for _Ark of Truth_  
Synopsis: Vala is not a woman known for her patience, but when it comes to Daniel, her persistence knows no bounds. Daniel, however, is just as stubborn. When a mission offworld goes awry, they're going to need all their collective determination to survive!  
Notes: Written for nicole9514 for the Daniel/Vala ficathon at LJ. Prompts were a hug, a rope, and an alien planet. Instead of the minimum 1,000 word length, however, this one BALLOONED to more than 10,000. A plot hole uncovered just before the original due date resulted in a new plot element being introduced to counter it, and the 'fic doubled in size again!  
Status: Completed April 14, 2008

* * *

**Water Over Stone**

_"By constant dripping, water hollows stone,  
A signet-ring from use alone grows thin,  
And the curved plowshare by soft earth is worn."  
— Ovid,_ Epistolae ex Ponto

"_Daniel!_"

The panicked scream tore through him, and Daniel did the only thing he could in the circumstances. Ignoring the armed guards, the archaeologist lunged for the rope sliding past his feet. Thankful his captors had let him keep his gloves, he tightened his fingers on the coarse line and braced himself as best as he could.

Vala, he remembered belatedly, was always a lot heavier than she looked.

His boots skidded on the rocky slope, and he fell to one knee trying to regain his balance. Pain shot through the offended joint, but he resolutely dug in further and held on for dear life. A sharp tug on the rope and a short cry announced that Vala's rapid and unintended descent down the cliff had been arrested. Despite the gloves, Daniel's fingers ached from the strain of catching and holding the rope. He closed his eyes briefly, drawing once more upon his "mind over matter" techniques. When he was confident he could ignore the dull pain, he opened his eyes again.

"Vala, are you okay?" he asked, tuning out the voices of their escort. He couldn't spare the concentration translating their words would take, anyway.

"I-I'm not sure," came the shaky reply from below. "Nice catch."

Part of him wanted to sigh in relief; the other part wanted to groan. He was proud of how, in a short span, she'd gone from scared out of her wits to calm enough to joke, but found himself equally annoyed by the inappropriate flippance.

Knowing her bound wrists had to be hurting fiercely—if not sprained out-right—by the sudden stop, Daniel called down for her to try to hold onto the rope with her hands. "I'll pull you up, but if you can sort off walk up the wall while I pull..."

"Got it," she answered, and the rope shifted as she positioned her feet. "Ready as I'll ever be."

Pushing more meditative thoughts through his muscles, Daniel stepped sideways around a nearby bush, using its thick trunk as a makeshift pulley. With his own hands tied, he couldn't pull more than a few inches at a time, but he was determined to keep up a steady pace. "Just hang on tight, Vala. I won't let you fall."

"I know," she answered. "I trust you."

The sincerity in her voice caught him off-guard. Daniel had bollixed this particular first contact situation from the start, but Vala still trusted him, still believed in him. Oddly enough, her trust in him was one of the few things he knew he could rely on, and in the last year, he'd slowly begun to let himself trust her, too.

"You're almost there," he coaxed, pulling a few more inches of rope through his hands. When Vala's gloved hands finally appeared at the lip of the canyon, Daniel knotted his end of the tether around the base of the hardy bush, then turned around and stepped forward to help her. As he squatted down to catch her hands and help her climb over the edge, he heard footsteps on gravel. _Finally_, one of their guards was going to help.

A moment later, he realized he was wrong yet _again_. Rough hands pushed at the small of his back, and Daniel had no way—and no one—to stop his fall.

* * *

_Twenty-four hours earlier..._

"Come on, Muscles, just a little hint? A teeny-tiny, itsy-bitsy, teensy-weensy one?"

Teal'c turned around and stared at Vala for a moment, jaw twitching slightly as though he was irritated by the inquiry, but his eyes expressed only humor. "You have requested this of me on many occasions, Vala Mal Doran," he replied.

"And?" she prompted, turning her head to the left and offering one of her most winning smiles.

"The answer is still 'no'." Giving one of those annoyingly polite upper-body bows, he resumed walking down the hall.

Not one to take a simple "no" for an answer, Vala gave chase, bounding along beside him. "'No', you won't tell me anything, or 'no' I didn't hook up with someone... or maybe I hooked up with more than one person?"

"'No', I will not respond to your inquiry," Teal'c answered, lips curving slightly in amusement.

"Ah ha!" she exclaimed triumphantly. "So I _did_ hook up with someone, didn't I? Who was it?"

Teal'c stepped into an elevator, and Vala ducked in right behind him. "I am not at liberty to say."

"Well, fine. Would you be 'at liberty to say' if I answered a few of _your _questions? As Daniel would say, quit pro quote?"

"_Quid pro quo_," he corrected. "And the answer is still 'no'."

"Oh, give it a try!" she encouraged. "Go ahead, you start."

Stepping off the elevator when the doors opened, he asked, "Do you know who took my _Farscape_ collection?"

"No idea," she responded immediately. "Your turn: who did I hook up with on the _Odyssey_?"

Teal'c smiled enigmatically again. "I cannot answer your question, as you did not answer mine truthfully. Aboard the _Odyssey_, you admitted you had concealed the DVDs in your nightstand."

Vala's mouth fell open in surprise only briefly before snapping shut and reforming into a pout. Before she could work up an appropriate reply, Teal'c vanished into the men's locker room, and since she inhabited her own body at the moment and not Daniel's like once before, she wasn't allowed to follow him.

Instead, she contented herself with getting a parting shot, even though the target wouldn't hear it. "I moved them to my dresser last week." Grinning smugly, Vala went in search of someone else on whom she could relieve her boredom.

* * *

"Guess what?"

Startled, Daniel dropped his pen, grabbed for it, nearly upset his mug, but managed to finally catch everything with no harm done to anyone or anything other than the small burn on his hand from a stray drop of hot coffee. "What?" he asked, looking up to see Vala Mal Doran hoisting herself up on the edge of his lab table.

"I _finally _got Teal'c to tell me something about all those years he spent on the _Odyssey_!" she exclaimed excitedly, either having missed his fumbling or choosing, for the moment, to ignore it.

Rubbing at the reddened patch of skin, Daniel nodded. "Good for you."

"Yes, and it just goes to show that I can wear down _anyone_ if I'm persistent enough."

Daniel had no problem believing that, but he _did_ wonder if Vala knew the difference between wearing someone down and driving them crazy. He didn't doubt for a _moment_ that Vala could harangue and annoy Teal'c until he lost patience with her "persistence", but that was a far cry from getting him to detail events he'd already sworn he would never reveal.

Vala was still prattling on about something, and Daniel felt a brief pang of embarrassment that he'd zoned out on her. "Crichton? Isn't that the author of _Jurassic Park_?"

She huffed indignantly and slid off the table. "Why am I even here?" she muttered in exasperation.

Daniel blinked. "Why _are _you here?" Yanking the proverbial foot out of his mouth before she could storm off in a well-deserved huff, he stammered, "Wait! I didn't... I didn't mean it like that! I mean—don't take this the wrong way or anything—but the Ori threat is gone now, so why are you still at the SGC?" He bit his lower lip nervously. "You don't have to answer it, really, I'm just... curious."

Several emotions flickered across Vala's face, but none stayed long enough to decipher. Instead, she pulled up a stool, straddled it, and leaned her crossed arms on the table. "I like it here, Daniel. I have a place to live, food to eat, and a job which—while often boring—at least gives me something to do that can actually make a difference. I don't have to just 'survive' here, I can _live_." Her eyes narrowed, but met his gaze steadily. "More importantly, I have _friends_ here, so believe me when I say, there's no other place I'd rather be."

Surprised by the honest and forthright answer, Daniel felt a smile begin to creep across his face. "Well, I'm glad you're here, then."

Vala beamed. "Thank you! And by the way, I was talking about _Farscape _when you tuned me out just a moment ago. Samantha thinks the male lead, John Crichton, resembles Colonel Mitchell, but I think he's more like you. He's a scientist—although more along Sam's vein than yours—makes friends with lots of different aliens, and is _crazy_ for the beautiful female lead, Aeryn Sun."

Having bought one of the season sets for Teal'c as a Christmas present a few years ago, Daniel had seen the cover and therefore had a pretty good idea which character "Aeryn" was. "Uh-huh," he remarked, shading his voice with disbelief. Fighting back a grin, he instead sculpted his face into a look of puzzlement and asked, "Isn't that the blue-skinned lady?"

Vala pouted. "Clearly, some aspects of your education have been neglected, Daniel." She brightened. "But if you'll follow me to my quarters, we can watch a few episodes together and correct that!"

"We can't, Vala, it's already 1900. Mission at four in the morning, remember?"

"Oh," she sighed, visibly deflating. "I forgot all about that. Why so early?"

"Time differential and atmosphere. A day on P21-663 is about twenty-eight hours long, and the atmosphere—"

"—Is thinner than Earth's, too, which means high UV radiation during the day and freezing temperatures at night," Vala finished, obviously having listened to Sam's explanations in the mission briefing that morning. "So we're starting out at dawn in cold weather gear and sunblock... sounds like my kind of fun."

Daniel grinned. Sometimes, Vala reminded him of Jack O'Neill: both were witty, irreverent, and possessed an enviable ability to shrug off stress. Jack and Vala also shared a tendency to act like naughty children, and a part of Daniel was grateful that the general and the former thief hadn't had much time to get to know one another. He was sure that if they managed to compare notes, he would shortly fall victim to their combined efforts. Singly, they each drove him to absolute distraction, and he was worried what would happen if they ever ganged up on him.

Jack and Vala were also people with whom he'd clashed at first, but to his utter surprise, he just as quickly found he couldn't live without them.

"I am, you know," he announced suddenly, then amended when she gave him a look of confusion, "I'm glad you're here, I mean, on Earth... at the SGC. Maybe we should take a rain check on those DVDs?"

Vala blinked in surprise, but quickly composed herself and beamed. "Absolutely!" Reaching out to tap him on the cheek, she turned to walk away, calling over her shoulder, "Better go get your beauty rest, Daniel; we've got a mission in the morning."

"Sweet dreams," Daniel told the now-empty doorway.

* * *

Metal ground against metal as the inner wheel turned and chevrons locked into place. Mentally hurrying the dialing process along, Cameron Mitchell bounced on his toes and anxiously awaited the Stargate's telltale rush of cosmic energy—the 'kawoosh', as Sam once told him it was oh-so-scientifically called. The SGC, being several stories below ground, was generally the slightly-too-cool temperature of a natural cave, but when wearing fifteen pounds of insulated Gore-TEX, it was practically _balmy_. The extra five minutes he'd had to stand in the 'Gate room waiting for first Jackson, then Vala, hadn't helped any at all.

"Let's go!" he called out as the event horizon settled into place, stepping up the ramp and pulling on his gloves as he moved. Not for the first time, he was glad the SGC always saved room in its budget for the latest and greatest in military hardware and other gear, as all the equipment loaded onto the remote-controlled flatbed would come in _very_ handy if their stay ran any length at all.

Behind him, he heard the whine of electric motors as Sam powered the FRED and its cargo forward, but the sound was soon cut off by his entrance into the open wormhole. As always, he loved the freewheeling sensation of hurtling through the cosmos, even though Sam once thought it necessary to _attempt_ to spoil his fun by explaining that the light, sound, and motion experience were the body's way of dealing with the overwhelming sensory input from being torn apart at the molecular level, rocketed through a spatial vortex at speeds far exceeding that of light, and reassembled again on the other side. Disturbing as such a concept was, Cam just liked to think of it as the wildest roller coaster Six Flags never thought of, and enjoy the ride.

The cold air on '663 wasn't unexpected, but it still slapped him in the face. Exhaling in surprise, he self-consciously tugged his balaclava further up the bridge of his nose and looked around. The sun, though hidden behind the massive rock wall next to the 'Gate, was obviously just beginning to peek over the horizon, coloring the sky with long streaks of red. The ground, which seemed mostly made of rough, dark gray stone, was broken here and there by patches of gleaming white snow and scraggly grasses. In the distance, barely visible past the mouth of the long canyon, dark columns rose in the morning air, marking the location of the village the SGC's premier first contact team was here to visit. Beyond that were more craggy canyons, towering rock formations, and snow-capped mountains.

The wormhole finished expelling the last of his team and shut off with the familiar roar and snap. Tugging his goggles down to cover the last remaining bit of exposed skin, Cam rested a hand on the butt of his P90 and sauntered over to the team. "Looks like the village is awake," he announced, gesturing upward to indicate the thin lines of smoke.

"If they're human and haven't physically adapted to the environment," Jackson began, pulling his eyeglasses off and replacing them with his prescription goggles, "then they probably make the dawn and dusk their primary activity times." Glasses safely tucked away in a hard case and stowed in a pocket, the anthropologist stepped forward to check on the DHD.

"If they're human," Cam pointed out.

"If they're human," Jackson agreed.

"I bet they aren't," Vala sing-songed, waddling up next to Jackson. The thick clothing wasn't having much of an effect on the movement of the taller members of the team, but Vala's shorter legs were hampered enough by the bulky fabric that she looked like a giant penguin.

Jackson's expression was unreadable, concealed as it was behind his own ski mask. "The odds are against you."

"I'll take those odds," she replied. "If I'm right, you owe me another date."

He coughed. "_Another_ date? Vala, we haven't even had _one_."

"Puh-leeze. And I want it to be that little Italian restaurant we went to the last time. I never did get to try that—passionate berry? Passion _fruit_. I want to try that passion fruit martini I didn't get to drink last time."

Behind the lenses of his goggles, Jackson's eyes rolled. "Fine. But if _I'm_ right... um..."

"She should have to take _you_ out to dinner," Sam chimed in, standing up from where she'd finished collecting a few soil samples.

"Deal!" Vala exclaimed, and Cam just _knew_ she was grinning behind her balaclava.

Jackson groaned, and Cam chuckled. "You got the ladies gangin' up on you, Jackson... you might as well give in gracefully."

"Fine, but I get to pick the restaurant," he conceded, eyes rolling again.

Shaking his head, Cam deliberately rubbed his gloved hands together. "Time's a-wastin', boys and girls... let's get movin'." Glancing back toward the 'Gate, he caught sight of Teal'c standing next to the MALP, watching the rest of the team interact. Since his face was concealed like everyone else's, Cam couldn't see his expression, but he was pretty sure the Jaffa was privately laughing at them all.

He seemed to do that a lot lately.

They headed toward the mouth of the canyon, Cam taking point with Jackson and Vala following just behind. Sam came next with the controls for the FRED, and Teal'c brought up the rear, presumably where he could watch them all and keep his amused thoughts to himself. As they cleared the canyon and continued to follow the left-hand wall toward the distant village, Cam glanced back at the team and noted that Vala had dropped back to walk beside Sam. Slowing his pace, Cam waited until Jackson caught up to him, then matched the other man's stride.

"Something going on between you and Vala?" he muttered.

Jackson's head jerked up in surprise. "What?"

"Well, you're making plans for another date, and you were both late to ship out this morning," Cam began. "Now, it's not that I disapprove of you two being involved or anything! I, uh, don't think it'd change how the team works, but as the team leader, I think I have a right to know if... you know."

"No!" Jackson protested. He glanced around furtively, then lowered his voice. "No, there's nothing 'going on' between us. She and Tomin only recently agreed to go their separate ways, and she hasn't had a night out on the town in months. It's no big deal, really. I was a little slow this morning because I misplaced a journal, but I haven't any idea why Vala was late; you'll have to ask her yourself."

Cam stared at him for a moment, wishing the cold weather gear didn't conceal so much of the archaeologist's face and posture. "Okay," he began at last, "but if anything changes, you know... tell me?" Increasing his pace once again, Cam retook the lead, leaving a silent and apparently bewildered Jackson in his wake.

* * *

Teal'c watched his teammates' antics with amusement, indulging himself in what was now his favorite pastime. In his last years aboard the time-ensnared _Odyssey_, one thing he had steadily grown to miss was the spark of enthusiasm in his human friends. Without proper medical care, they'd aged far too rapidly even for humans, and it was painful for him to watch them grow old and know that when they died, he'd live on several more decades... or at least until the Ori energy beam finally breached the time barrier.

Seeing them all young and healthy filled him with a mix of emotions: gratitude, for certain, thankful that the fates had seen fit to grant him a second opportunity to live out his life with his dearest friends; joy at seeing them spared from a meaningless death; pride at witnessing all they had accomplished in so short a time.

Anger, sorrow, and guilt—he was the only one who remembered the life they'd had. It was a terrible burden to carry, and at times, he wished he could forget. He'd even locked himself in his quarters a few weeks back to perform his annual mourning ritual for Hank before realizing he was grieving for a man who wasn't dead yet.

For that matter, the Hank Landry Teal'c knew didn't even _exist_: there was only General Landry, and while he was similar, he was not the same man Teal'c had known. Of all his friends, only Daniel Jackson and Vala Mal Doran were the closest in temperament to their older counterparts, lacking only the peace and comfort Daniel and Vala had found with one another. Samantha had spent many years mired in regret and self-doubt, and despite Teal'c's efforts to console her, had never forgiven herself for making the decision which marooned the team.

Cameron, too, had had demons he seemingly could not exorcize. Just over ten years into their confinement, Cameron had finally beaten Teal'c in a sparring match, but the victory brought him no closure. He abandoned the weekly bouts and never mentioned them again. Instead, he began spending more and more of his time sitting in the cockpit of one of the F-302s, dreaming his life away.

And now it seemed as though Teal'c was doomed to dream the rest of his life away, as well. Giving himself a mental shake and hoping that his woolgathering had gone unnoticed, the Jaffa returned his concentration to the mission, tuning his aged but still-sharp senses to the trail around and before him. They had exited the canyon and were now following the curve of the cliff to their left, using its looming presence as a guide for the path they were to follow.

Even without such a guide, the trail would have been an easy enough one to traverse. Though no road led the way from the Stargate to the village, the land at the base of the massive rock formations was flat enough to permit sight for many miles. As much as that comforted him, it also put him ill at ease, realizing that there would be little cover afforded by the sparse grasses should SG-1 need to retreat.

Finally, they reached the outskirts of the village and began to make their way around a ragged low fence made of bound sticks. The crude barrier was clearly not constructed for defensive means but rather for containing livestock. Though Teal'c saw no beasts, there was ample spoor within the corral to indicate their recent presence.

Suddenly, a bellow split the morning air, followed by a pair of echoing roars. Immediately on-guard, the team slowed and readied their weapons. Several tense moments passed in which the team cast about, searching for the source of the ruckus, and then a figure emerged from the closely-grouped collection of low stone houses.

At first, he thought he was seeing a rather large man dressed in dark gray shaggy furs, but that notion was quickly dispelled. The man turned to greet the team, revealing simian features, sharp tusks, and gracefully-curving horns. Expert on Tau'ri urban legends that he was, Teal'c immediately thought of a yeti.

"Whoa," muttered Mitchell, likely having come to the same conclusion.

"We are surrounded," Teal'c noted, glancing around as more of the... yetis arrived on the scene. Most were unarmed, but their fearsome teeth, horns, and claw-tipped hands could do soft human flesh a great deal of damage if the creatures chose to attack. Those who bore weapons carried short, heavy spears. Fortunately, the yetis were making no overtly aggressive gestures, leaving Teal'c with the impression that they were just as curious about SG-1 as the team was about them.

"Jackson, you're on," Colonel Mitchell ordered quietly. "Get us out of here in one piece so you can take Vala on her date, will ya?"

Daniel Jackson swallowed heavily. "I have no idea where to begin." Despite his words, his first step was to lower his P90 to his chest and hold out both arms placatingly. "Greetings," he began, "we mean you no harm... we're peaceful explorers from a planet called Earth."

"I don't think they understand you," Vala Mal Doran muttered.

"Maybe not the words, but I'm hoping they understand my body language." In a move which never ceased to give Teal'c the mother of all tension headaches, the linguist stepped out of the circle of his teammates and toward the yeti who had first revealed itself. It was risks like these which so often paid off, but which O'Neill had always blamed for his loss of hair-color.

Thinking on the broad streak of gray in his own hair, Teal'c wondered if perhaps O'Neill's claims held some merit.

The lead yeti chuffed, then growled softly, though neither noise seemed to hold any malice. Encouraged, Daniel Jackson slowly brought his right hand in and tapped himself on the chest. "Daniel Jackson."

"Ha-nel Haks-sen," the yeti tried. The leader then tapped his own chest and uttered a snarl.

"Norraul?" Daniel Jackson attempted. The yeti barked shortly, apparently finding the pronunciation acceptable enough.

As the linguist breathed a sigh of relief, Colonel Mitchell turned to stare at him. Teal'c wished the garments the team wore did not conceal their faces, as he was certain he would have enjoyed the expression of incredulity on the pilot's face. "Whoa! Reading about the whole 'make friends with Unas' thing is one thing, but watching it in action is something else!"

Daniel Jackson shrugged. "Well, we're far from being able to communicate in a meaningful way, but it's a start."

"The yetis haven't ripped our arms out of their sockets yet, so I'd say it's a _hell_ of a start."

"I was just thinking the same thing," Colonel Carter announced. "Er, not the arm sockets thing, but that they looked like yetis."

"I had also drawn that comparison," Teal'c added.

"Well, _I_ didn't," chimed in Vala Mal Doran. "I was going to say 'Abominable Snowman'."

"Same thing," four voices replied.

"Oh."

Daniel Jackson nodded. "Actually, I'm hoping these guys really _are_ the source of the legend of the yeti. It's possible that if the Goa'uld brought them to this planet long ago—or are responsible for their having been on Earth—then they might understand Goa'uld or maybe even one of the Sino dialects."

"Mandarin?" Colonel Mitchell suggested.

"Not likely. Mandarin is pretty new, linguistically speaking. Besides, yetis are Himalayas, meaning Tibetan, Nepali, or any one of the hundreds of other local variants."

"You know at least one of those, right?" Colonel Carter offered hopefully.

"Actually, no." Daniel Jackson rolled his shoulders. "Not much call for an Egyptologist at twenty thousand feet above sea level."

"Yeah, good point," Colonel Mitchell agreed grudgingly. He then muttered something under his breath that Teal'c didn't understand.

The yetis must have, however, as they growled in reply and bared their teeth. Daniel Jackson raised his hands again and shouted something as equally incomprehensible.

"They _understood_ me?" Colonel Mitchell gaped.

"Everybody be quiet for a minute, okay?" Daniel Jackson snapped, then turned back to Norraul and continued speaking, likely making apologies for whatever offense the SG-1 team leader had inadvertently committed.

* * *

Daniel held his breath, instructing his muscles to _not_ give into instinct and go for his weapon. It was funny how such an action had become "instinct" when years ago, it was anything but. Times had changed—_Daniel_ had changed—but he hoped his ability to make nice with even the biggest, baddest, scariest aliens in the galaxy was still intact.

Norraul finished chuffing, grunting, and clicking to his companions, then turned back to the trapped team. "_No harm was intended; no harm was taken,_" he announced in his growling version of Mandarin Chinese.

"It's okay, guys," Daniel sighed, feeling his shoulders slump in relief. "Mitchell, no more insults in Mandarin, got it?"

"No problem," the colonel answered quickly.

"_You do not run from us or attack_," Norraul questioned. "_You smell differently from the others of your kind we have met. Why is this?_"

"_We're from another planet,_" Daniel explained. "_We're peaceful explorers, travelers through the Stargate_."

"_No one has traveled the road of the gods in many years. You do not fear us; you do not seem to wish us harm."_ He paused. _"You are welcome to join us inside. We would like to speak with you further._"

"I think I understood most of that," Mitchell began. "He wants us to go inside and talk, right?"

"Yeah," the linguist agreed.

Jack, he knew, would have hated the thought of putting his entire team at the mercy of an alien race, especially one as physically capable as the yetis—for lack of a better term. In fact, if Teal'c had still had a symbiote to protect him from the cold, Daniel would have considered asking the big Jaffa to remain outside as a guard.

Mitchell wasn't Jack, though, and didn't have the older man's dozen-and-more years of Special Ops paranoia coloring his tactical decisions. Daniel didn't either, but he did have ten years of 'Gate travel experience—if walking into Goa'uld, Replicator, and Ori ambushes didn't make you paranoid, nothing would.

"Let's go in and have a chat, then," Mitchell decided. "That's why we're here."

Daniel nodded to Norraul, and the team followed the apparent leader of the yeti village. The large humanoid led them to the fur-covered entrance to one of the buildings, pulling the makeshift door aside. After glancing back to make sure the team was following, Norraul ducked into the fire-warmed interior. Taking a single step after him, Daniel pulled his goggles off, letting his eyes adjust to the dim lighting.

Six steps led down into the circular room, making the building considerably taller than it appeared to be from the outside. It was clearly a structure designed for gatherings, given the open floor plan, numerous cushions, and low-lying tables. Norraul gestured for the team to seat themselves wherever they chose, so Daniel picked a longer table near one side of the room, one with a full view of the entrance. Cameron gave an approving nod to his choice of seating, easing himself down on the straw-stuffed cushion immediately to Daniel's right. Vala claimed the seat to his left, letting out an audible sigh as she sat.

"Well, isn't this cozy," she remarked. Daniel decided to ignore the comment.

Three more of the yetis joined the team at the table, and as Daniel made introductions, he peeled the balaclava from his face and retrieved his glasses. The lenses were settled into place in time to see a weighted look be exchanged among the village elders, but it passed quickly. The rest of the team removed their own headgear, and Daniel was soon busy explaining his team's reasons for visiting the planet in greater detail, as well as translating between the two groups.

They were called the Ganar, and were enslaved and brought to this planet by the Goa'uld Helios to mine the minerals present in the cliffs. After several generations, Helios stopped returning, and the Ganar were able to overthrow their Jaffa guards and win their freedom.

"Helios was destroyed by Ra nearly three centuries ago," Teal'c explained after Daniel finished translating.

"Of course," Daniel remarked. "How dare anyone _else _refer to himself as the Sun God."

"Indeed," Teal'c smiled.

Daniel translated the Jaffa's explanation to the Ganar, then frowned, thinking on what the elders had said of the cruelty of their Jaffa taskmasters. "_I hope you are not offended by Teal'c's presence_," he began.

"_Why should we be?_" asked Karragh, the only female elder. Outwardly, she looked no different from males of her race, as their long, thick coats concealed any defining anatomy.

"_He _is_ Jaffa_."

The Ganar's nostrils flared in surprise, but they looked only curious, not upset. "_The Jaffa have changed much in the years_."

"_Yes, they have. They, like you, are now free. Helios may have been killed by Ra, but Ra himself was killed several years ago, and the Jaffa rebelled against the remaining System Lords. The Goa'uld have been all-but eradicated_." It was an overly-simplified explanation, of course, but it served his purpose.

Eventually, conversation got around to what the SGC hoped to get out of a possible trade agreement with the Ganar. First and foremost, of course, was what the team hoped was naquadah still in the abandoned mines, and Sam was eager to take some samples. Daniel then asked if he and his team could be shown to the mines to acquire some soil samples for the geologists back on Earth. The response he received was unexpected.

"_The mines are forbidden_."

"_You said yourself that you no longer mine the ore within them_," Daniel pressed cautiously. "_Our people may have need of those minerals, as one in particular does not occur naturally on our planet_."

Norraul chuffed. "_It is a perilous journey. There are many dangerous creatures along the way. Your safety could not be assured._"

Daniel relayed this information to his teammates, adding, "The Ganar seem to be able to handle themselves pretty well. The wildlife must be pretty bad if they're worried about it."

Wisely, Mitchell decided to get opinions from the full team before making a decision. "I think we handle ourselves pretty well, too, but is it worth the risk?"

"We don't _know_ if it's worth the risk," Sam pointed out. "That mine could be empty or have only common ores in it, or it could have a few good veins of naquadah... or even trinium. We won't know until we check it out."

"I say we head home," Vala chimed in. "I, for one, don't want to tangle with anything mean enough to make our very large friends here nervous."

"I, too, am concerned about the possible dangers, but I believe our weapons will prove far more formidable than those available to the Ganar," replied Teal'c.

All eyes now on him, Daniel shrugged. "Depends on how far it is and what the terrain's like. We have enough supplies on the FRED to last us a week—two, if we stretch it—but I don't want to try carrying all that gear ourselves."

"That's two for, one against, and one abstention," Mitchell drawled. "Find out how far it is to the mines. Let them know that we'll go by ourselves, if we have to, that way we don't put any of their people at risk."

Trying to be as diplomatic as possible, Daniel translated his team leader's words. "_Of course, since this is your planet, you _do_ have the right to tell us to just go home_."

Despite the phonetic shift, Mitchell must have understood some of what he said, as he shot him a confused look. "Jackson?"

Norraul gave a staccato growl, and the other elders joined him in what was apparently their version of a laugh. "_We could,_" he began after a moment, "_but I believe your companions would not welcome such an answer_. _The journey is not long, but it will take perhaps a day to reach, another to return. It may take even longer if your people are not prepared for the harsh sunlight or cold nights._"

"_We are_," he answered.

"_Our people are farmers and herders_," began Grancha, an aged Ganar with a pelt liberally streaked with white. "_We have few hunters and warriors, and fewer still who can speak this language, but those we can spare will escort your people to the mines and back again._" Bowing his head respectively, Daniel thanked them for their generosity.

"We good to go?" Mitchell asked.

"We have our escort," he replied. Intellectually, the archaeologist knew that the extra manpower would lessen the risks of attack by wild animals; why, then, did he suddenly have such a bad feeling about the trip?

* * *

Author's Notes:  
I know, I know... I've been sorely neglecting my writing the last few months.


	2. Part 2 of 4

**Water Over Stone  
**Part 2 of 4

"—Which makes just about as much sense as everyone _else_ in the galaxy speaking modern English!"

Sam grinned at Daniel's long-winded gripe about the impossibility of the yetis—the Ganar—being able to speak a relatively modern Earth language. Usually, she was the one who hated it when something defied logical explanation, but poor Daniel was tangling with more than just a linguistic mystery.

He also had to deal with the relatively rare occurrence of being _wrong_ about something.

Daniel wasn't perfect, of course, and neither was she. Being wrong was something Sam had a hard time accepting, especially if someone like Rodney McKay was in the right. For Daniel to have been proven wrong by an "amateur" like Cameron Mitchell, though, was surely a blow to his scholarly ego. In an attempt to recover, the linguist was doing what he did best: argue.

"Maybe there's another explanation," Cam suggested, smearing a new layer of sunblock over the back of his neck and the bridge of his nose before jamming his field cap on again. "Maybe some Chinese-speaking people have come through the Stargate in the last few hundred years or so. The big guy _did_ say something about having met people like us before, so maybe they've had other visitors."

Daniel frowned. "I thought you understood only about one word in ten."

"Okay, so it's more like one word in five, but I'm not about to try striking up a conversation. Anyway, if we're talking about a culture that developed somewhat parallel to the one on Earth—"

"—Then it's _possible_ the language could develop similarly," Daniel finished.

"Exactly!"

Unable to help herself, Sam exclaimed, "Oh, for crying out loud!"

"What?" both men asked, surprised by the outburst.

"Oh, nothing," she smirked, watching a broad smile spread across Teal'c's face. "Used to be, it was me and Daniel doing the 'geeking out' while Colonel O'Neill complained."

"Oh, funny," Cam griped, rolling his eyes while Vala sniggered.

Daniel's jaw twitched, and Sam could tell he was holding back a smile. She wished he would just let it out, as it had been _way_ too long since she last saw him smile. Not since before his capture by the Ori, at the very least, since she couldn't recall him being in much of a mood to kid around with General O'Neill after being 'rescued'. Usually, the general could snap Daniel out of a funk, but there just hadn't been enough reason to joke after witnessing several more Ori ships enter the galaxy as a result of the deployment of Merlin's weapon. If simply reminding Daniel of good times with his closest friend could lighten his mood so easily, then Sam resolved to have the general on the next plane to Colorado as soon as they got back to Earth... or Daniel and the General _both_ on planes to Minnesota.

"Without meaning to sound like a whiny child," Vala began, "are we there yet?"

Daniel rattled something off to one of their guides, receiving a growling response shortly. "We're making better time than they expected, but it's still another... well, I'm not quite sure how they measure time, but it's probably still a few hours. It's only midday, after all."

"Great," she huffed.

"Something wrong?" Sam asked, thinking Vala looked a little too red-faced beneath her floppy boonie hat. She'd been applying sunblock like the rest of them had, but was she still getting sunburned?

"Well, it's just that you all have longer legs than I do, and these bulky pants are rather difficult to walk in over these big rocks."

Cam slowed to walk beside her. "Should we take another break?"

"Well, I... maybe we..." She swiped at the ponytail sticking to the back of her neck and shifted the weight of her pack. "Actually, that's probably not a bad idea."

"Jackson?"

"On it," Daniel answered, and went back to talking to their escort. "Um, they say this really isn't a good time to be stopping. Apparently, we're in one of the more dangerous parts of this route."

"Why didn't they say so earlier?" Cam complained.

The linguist shrugged, though he didn't look any happier about it than Sam felt. "Maybe they didn't want to worry us?"

"I'd rather be worried than unprepared," Sam answered.

"Ditto," Cam agreed. "Buck up there, princess. The sooner we get to the mine and back, the sooner Jackson here has to take you out to dinner."

Vala shook her head. "Oh, no," she panted. "If Daniel had backed me up back in the village... that'd have been two... against two on the whole... 'let's go hiking across monster-infested boulder fields'... idea." She irritably hitched at her bulky clothing. "At this point... he owes me dinner _and_ a movie."

"Mitchell still had the final say," Daniel reminded her.

"You're not getting... off the hook that easily... Daniel."

Lips pressing together, Daniel asked something else of the Ganar leading the party, and after a short discussion with the rest of his group, the leader slowed his pace considerably. "Only for a little while, though," the archaeologist informed them.

"I'll take it," Vala puffed, taking a swig from her canteen. "For that, Daniel, I just might buy the popcorn."

Daniel heaved a martyred sigh.

Grinning, Sam turned to see what Teal'c thought of the goings-on, knowing that the Jaffa reveled in the team's interaction. It was sad to think, but she felt the team he had known had, in some ways, drifted apart despite their decades-long isolation aboard the _Odyssey_. It had to be hard on him, seeing these people who were just like the friends he'd watched grow old, and at the same time, very different from those he had known.

Instead of his now-habitual amused smile, Teal'c was wearing a deep frown. Altering her pace, Sam slowed to walk beside him. "Is something the matter?"

"I am unsure." Teal'c's gaze swept the ground before him. The terrain had been relatively smooth and sparsely grassed near the Ganar village, but had grown steadily rockier after entering another canyon. They now wound their way through a region of waist and head-high formations and boulders. "If the beast our guides fear is a mountain-climber, then we are already deep in its territory. Unfortunately, I have yet to see evidence to indicate a population of large predators."

"Maybe they're relatively small and travel in packs," Sam suggested, "like wolves or hyenas."

"Perhaps," the Jaffa answered, "but I am... uneasy."

That set the hair on the back of Sam's neck on end. If she'd learned nothing at all in her years on SG-1, it was that Teal'c's instincts were correct just as often as Daniel's theories were, if not more. Grimacing, she shifted her grip on her P90, bringing it into a more-ready position.

Cam noticed the motion. "Sam?"

"Teal'c has a bad feeling about this," she explained.

Immediately, the rest of the team made small adjustments to their own weapons, eyes darting about as though trying to see through the irregular rock formations making up the majority of the canyon floor. "Yeah, I've had a bad feeling since before we left the village," Daniel agreed in a low voice.

Vala thumped him on the shoulder. "And you didn't _say_ anything?"

Any attempt to reply was cut off as one of the Ganar shouted and pointed. Following his direction, Sam caught a glimpse of something dark and low to the ground, but it moved too quickly for her to see what it was. Another figure moved out of the corner of her eye, and she spun to track it. It, too, had disappeared. Then there was a third flash of movement—in yet another direction—and Sam felt her heart plummet.

They were surrounded.

* * *

Trying to swallow back the dry, uncomfortable feeling in her throat, Vala clutched at her P90 and backed up until her shoulder bumped into Daniel's arm. "Now I wish you _hadn't_ said anything."

"Yeah," he agreed, bringing his own weapon up defensively.

Their Ganar guides were forming a protective circle which didn't include SG-1, forcing the team to provide for their own safety. Feeling just a brief flash of annoyance at the Ganar's deliberate exclusion of their "guests", Vala dismissed her irritation in favor of filling her own little spot of the team's defense. It was the one thing about SG-1 that gave her the greatest joy: she fit... she _belonged_. She might have gotten off on the wrong foot with them—what with the whole stealing the _Prometheus _and kidnapping Daniel thing—but once she'd been accepted onto the team, she was accepted completely.

And while it was truly an honor to work with them, she'd _really_ hate to die with them. Being pinned down by the soldiers of the Ori in their quest for the Ark had been frighteningly too-close to the real thing, for herself, Daniel, and especially Teal'c.

"Here they come," Cameron muttered.

Firming her grip on her weapon, Vala turned her attention to her area of coverage, and caught her first sight of their attackers. A dark-colored cat the size of an average Tau'ri dog leapt gracefully atop one of the rocky mounds, letting out a strangely high-pitched cry more akin to a scream than a roar. The sound was chilling, especially once the call was echoed by a number of other predators lurking in the choppy terrain.

One of the beasts sprang out of nowhere, but the quick reflexes of both Sam and Teal'c brought it down with sharp reports from their P90s. Another pounced, and this time Vala's rifle sounded alongside Daniel's. The wounds staggered the creatures, but didn't fell them, and soon more and more of the cats were making daring leaps at their would-be prey, while the wounded ones pressed further forward.

An angry roar sounded to her right, and Vala risked a glance at the Ganar party, wincing as she witnessed one of the warriors go down with a puma's paws wrapped around his chest. Subsequent glances showed the attacking cat was quickly speared and slain, but it was too late for the Ganar whose throat had been torn out by its powerful jaws.

There was another high-pitched cry and the cats retreated a short distance. Despite the break in the attack, they continued to stalk the two groups from beyond the bodies of their dead fellows, and behind the sheltering rocks. A part of Vala hated to see so many of the sleek, graceful predators dead, but she was far more concerned with the lives of her own friends than she was with those of a bunch of over-grown mouse-catchers.

"Everybody okay?"

"Oh, I'm great," Daniel answered as he reloaded his weapon. "Just peachy."

"Daniel Jackson," Teal'c began, "there are times when I feel you have spent too much time with O'Neill."

"And times it isn't enough," Sam muttered under her breath. Vala, standing next to her, just barely heard the comment, but from the look Teal'c gave the female colonel, he did, too.

"Indeed," he agreed softly.

Vala wasn't quite sure what they meant. She'd met General O'Neill on only a handful of occasions, finding the older officer to be funny and quite likeable. It was obvious he thought the world of Daniel, too, which definitely put him in Vala's good books. He showed he cared in subtle ways: by teasing, annoying, and exasperating the archaeologist mercilessly.

She frowned, briefly taking her eyes off the circling pumas to look at Daniel. Come to think of it, she did the same thing. Was that her way of showing she cared, too? If so, had Daniel drawn any comparisons between her behavior and that of the general? Vala considered Daniel to be one of her nearest and dearest friends, but she could never be certain the level of friendship was reciprocated. Daniel was often the proverbial closed book, one whose cover didn't reflect the contents at all.

Wow. She was _deep_ when facing the prospect of becoming cat food.

The leader of the Ganar party shouted something, and Daniel's head jerked sharply in surprise. "What?" he exclaimed.

"Jackson?"

Before Daniel could answer Cameron's inquiry, another shrill cry signaled the renewal of the cat's attack, but this time, they weren't alone. Stones began to pelt SG-1 and the Ganar, and though most were too small to be more than irritants, some of the rocks flying past were large enough to do some serious damage if they connected.

"What the hell is going on?" Cameron yelled.

"It's some kind of rival tribe or something!" Daniel called back, ducking as a fist-sized projectile sailed over his head, clattering to the ground near Cameron's feet. "The Ganar practically challenged them to face our 'rattle-sticks'!"

"Well, _that_ was bright!"

Sam gasped as a sharp-edged stone cut a line across her cheek. "We need to fall back!"

"And go where?"

"We should return the way we came!" Teal'c shouted. "There are no stone-throwers behind us, only their trained felines!"

Spotting an incoming rock, Vala pulled Daniel out of its way, then redirected her fire at another one of the cats. "Sounds like a great idea!"

"What about the Ganar?" Daniel asked.

"Let 'em fend for themselves! They're the ones who got us into this mess by not telling us what to expect—" Cameron dodged a missile "—and then bragging about our better weapons!"

Daniel's jaw clenched, but he nodded. Cameron signaled Vala, and she took advantage of their covering fire to dash back to just past Teal'c's position, where she immediately set about clearing their escape route. Daniel daisy-chained past her as Cameron covered his retreat, and the well-oiled machine that was SG-1 began to make slow but steady progress back in the direction from which they'd come.

The Ganar, realizing that SG-1 was in retreat, began their own withdrawal, though unlike the team's measured pace, they charged _en masse_, driving a wedge in the feline attackers. Thankfully, it was a gap SG-1 was able to take advantage of, and without having to cover so much in the direction in which they intended to move, their own pace began to increase.

It was Vala's turn at the rear of the column when disaster struck. A far-flung rock sailed in her direction, forcing her to dodge or be struck. Unfortunately, she misstepped, struggled to right herself with her movements hampered by the bulky cold weather gear, and wound up sprawling in an undignified heap on the ground.

"Vala!" Daniel shouted, running forward to help her get to her feet. He pulled up short, though, raising his weapon again to ward off another of the yowling beasts. Vala rolled over as quickly as she could and scrambled to her feet. She made it upright just in time to see a shadow cross Daniel's back.

Before she could raise her rifle or draw breath to scream out a warning, the pouncing cat struck the linguist from behind, knocking him off balance. He wobbled, flailed at the air, then went down, knocking his head sharply against an outcropping and slumping bonelessly to the ground.

A similar impact slammed Vala between the shoulder blades, and the world went dark.

* * *

The cat he was tracking gave a pained yowl before collapsing on the rocky ground. "Jackson!" Cam called. "What's the hold up?"

There was no answering shout, and Cam realized he hadn't seen Vala go past him, either. Sparing a glance in the direction his teammates should have been, his heart sank when he couldn't see either of them. Just as he grabbed for his radio, another sharp cry went out to the cats. Were the animals about to renew their attacks?

"Jackson, Vala, respond," he muttered over his radio.

In the silence that followed his query, Cameron realized that the attack on the team had apparently been halted, rather than renewed. No more stones were being hurled over the tops of the rocky formations, and no more mountain lions growled and snarled in threat. "Teal'c, Sam, regroup on my position. I've lost sight of Jackson and Vala, and they aren't answering."

"On our way," answered Sam immediately. Moments later, she and Teal'c were picking their way through the boulder field toward him, weapons lowered now that the danger seemed to be past.

"What happened?" Sam asked as soon as she drew near.

"Hell if I know," Cam answered disgustedly, changing the clip on his rifle as he began to walk to the archaeologist's last-known position. "I was busy dodging rocks and trying to pick off the damned cat that was stalking me. Finally got the bugger before I realized neither Vala nor Jackson had come this way." He shrugged uncomfortably, scanning the surrounding area. "I thought maybe they just got pinned down—"

"—But then the attack ended," Sam finished.

"Yeah, and not a peep out of 'em." He grimaced and kept moving, achingly aware that he'd just passed what had been Jackson's position in the line.

General O'Neill always jokingly blamed his gray hair on Jackson, and it was no wonder! Cam had known the archaeologist for less than a quarter the amount of time the older officer had, but had already experienced quite a number of scares in that short frame. It wasn't that Daniel did stupid things—well, some might be construed as stupid—but that he just seemed to have no sense of self-preservation if someone he cared about was in harm's way.

If Vala had gotten into trouble... and Jackson had come to the rescue...

Jackson might get gruff with the irrepressible thief at times, but Cam remembered all-too-well the extra hours Jackson put in when Vala got herself kidnapped by the Trust. Cam had even caught him asleep at his desk, having worked through the night to find clues as to her whereabouts, the motive for grabbing her, and anything else he thought might speed the search. When they'd finally caught up to the amnesiac alien, Jackson had put his life on the line to convince her of his sincerity and friendship.

Either there really _was_ something going on between them, or Jackson and Vala were two of the most clueless idiots in the galaxy.

"Colonel Mitchell," Teal'c warned softly. He touched a shiny patch on a rock not far from where Vala had made her stand, and his fingertips came back smeared with blood.

Cam let out an expletive. He was going to be as gray as the general in no time.

* * *

It was times like this that made him wish he'd kept his little bungalow out in the suburbs, despite the mess Osiris had made of the place. The neighbor's kid had cranked up his stereo again, rattling the adjoining apartment walls with the deep rumble of the bass. The beat had taken over Daniel's pulse, rattling the blood through his brain and sending technicolor sparks shooting across the backs of his eyes.

"Daniel?"

And just how the hell did Vala get in his apartment, anyway?

"Daniel, wake up."

"Nggh." It wasn't the most intelligent thing for a man of his education to say, but he didn't have it in him to be a conversationalist at the moment.

"Look, I'd love to let you sleep a while longer, but I think the natives are getting a _little_ restless." There was a pause. "Not that I can understand a word they say, mind you, but it's more of a general attitude."

"Vala?" Daniel slitted an eye open, wincing at the brilliant sunlight filtering through his lashes.

Sunlight?

Coming swiftly back to awareness, Daniel tried to sit up, only to discover that the pounding in his head had absolutely nothing to do with irritating neighbors on a planet thousands of light years away. Rolling to his side and curling up, he then tried to check out what was surely an egg-sized lump on the side of his head, but his hands jerked to a stop still inches away from his face. Daring to open his eyes again, he looked down and found his wrists were bound with a short length of coarse rope between them. The rope then trailed from one wrist to some point beyond his feet.

He closed his eyes briefly to try to gather his scrambled wits. In times of stress, Daniel found it useful to draw upon the meditative techniques he'd learned from _kel'nor'reem_ sessions with Teal'c, and what Jack now called his "Ascension 101" lessons at Kheb. He'd long possessed the ability to ignore his body's needs—he'd studied for three post-graduate degrees, after all—but ten years at the SGC had enabled him to turn the "bad" habit into a remarkably useful discipline.

It had helped him survive torture a number of times, come to think of it.

He'd just successfully pushed aside the ache in his head when something hard nudged him none-too-gently in the ribs. As Vala protested his mistreatment, Daniel rolled over in time to see a dark brown, fur-covered figure walk back over to where more of its fellows waited.

"Rival tribe?" he guessed, annoyed that his glasses seemed to be gone. He really _should_ consider getting laser surgery so he wouldn't be blind every time some bad guy took his glasses from him.

Maybe he should consider getting captured less often.

"Not quite," Vala answered, scooting across the hard ground on her knees before sitting down beside him. Her hands were bound much as Daniel's were, and also seemed to be tethered to some point beyond his present line-of-sight. "Looks like we're going douche on our date," she remarked.

"'Going Dutch'," he corrected automatically, forcing back a grin at her verbal mix-up. It was just one of the many ways Vala resembled a female version of Jack O'Neill. "Wait, what do you mean?"

"Splitting the bill? You pay your part, I pay mine?"

"I know what 'going Dutch' means, Vala, I meant—" He turned his head to stare at the figures in brown fur, realizing they were speaking the same variant of Mandarin some of the Ganar knew. The guards turned to look at their prisoners, and Daniel felt his jaw drop. "They're _human?_"

"And not at all happy to see _us_," Vala sighed.

* * *

Sam hated it. Absolutely, positively, with every-fiber-of-her-being _despised_ it, and yet she knew there was no other way. "We have to go back to the SGC."

Cam kicked at a small rock in frustration. "I'm not arguing with you, Sam, I just..."

"I, too, wish there was another choice," interrupted Teal'c, "but we were severely out-numbered and have little intelligence regarding the forces we may be facing. Nevertheless, I believe the IOA will order General Landry to abandon any attempt to retrieve Daniel Jackson and Vala Mal Doran until the _Odyssey_ finishes relocating the refugees from P8K-R52."

"See, that's what I'm worried about, too!" Cam exclaimed. "That and the fact that Jackson and Vala might not have the time it'd take us to return to Earth and back, regardless of any IOA interference."

Sam shook her head. "If the rival tribe had wanted to kill them, they'd have already done it. I think the fact that they took Daniel and Vala with them speaks for their desire to keep them alive."

"Okay, how 'bout we compromise?" the other colonel suggested. "We go back to the Ganar village, find out everything we can about this rival tribe, and make a decision then about whether to head to the 'Gate or not. The more we know, the more complete our report to General Landry will be."

"Only one problem: Daniel's not with us to translate."

Cam gave her an incredulous stare. "Hello, Sam! Who's the idiot who almost caused in interstellar incident by making a reference to pig-headed apes?"

"You called the Ganar pig-headed apes?" she gaped.

"No, I was calling _Jackson_ a pig-headed ape 'cause he was being so damned stubborn." He rolled his shoulders and stretched his neck. "Look, Sam, I may not be as good as he is, but at least I speak the language. Sort of. It's better than nothing, anyway, and a hell of a lot better than having to go back to the SGC for a translator."

"I am in agreement," Teal'c announced. "The Ganar elders seemed fond of Daniel Jackson, and I do not think they will be pleased to hear of his capture. It is an advantage we should press for as much as we can. General Landry is far more likely to authorize additional SG personnel if we have allies on this world willing to aid us in our search."

Cam snorted. "Yeah, allies who refused to tell us what sort of trouble we were walking into, then goaded our attackers into using us for target practice."

"It's the best chance Daniel and Vala have," Sam agreed. "I can't say I'm happy about turning to the Ganar for help, but we don't have a lot of options... other than waiting until the _Odyssey_ becomes available again."

"Back to the village, then?"

"Indeed." Teal'c set his jaw and began his determined stride back toward the Ganar village. Sam and Cam exchanged glances before following.

No one messed with Vala and especially Daniel without getting on Teal'c's bad side. This was, after all, the same Jaffa who'd hiked across several miles of rugged mountain terrain while severely wounded, determined to rescue the archaeologist and the former space pirate from the clutches of the Ori.

Sam clenched her own teeth. The same determination went for her, too, because nobody got away with messing with SG-1 on _her_ watch.

Nobody messed with family.

* * *

Vala staggered again, feeling the yank of the ropes around her wrists, before righting herself and stumbling onward. This time, she couldn't blame her lack of grace on the bulky cold-weather clothing, as the Shan-wi had stripped their captives down to their BDUs. The removal of the extra layer hadn't bothered Vala a bit while the sun was still high in the sky, but as it crept downward toward evening, a chill was beginning to settle in.

Of course, some of her fatigue might have something to do with the fact she hadn't slept well the night before, and had been hiking—or unconscious—for the better part of the planet's twenty-eight hour day.

"At least they let us keep our boots and gloves," Daniel muttered, shooting her a sympathetic look.

"Yes, I'm eternally grateful," she answered, rolling her eyes.

Unfortunately, the Shan-wi didn't like for their captives to talk, a point which they emphasized by thumping both offenders with the leather-wrapped ends of their Y-shaped staves. Daniel had called them "lacrosse" sticks earlier, and suggested they were the reason behind the human inhabitants' impressive stone-throwing abilities. Before he was whacked into silence by one of the sharp-eyed guards, he promised to explain the reference later.

Frankly, Vala was getting tired of being smacked with a stick every time she tried to speak. She was tired, cold, and hungry, and so far nothing was being done to alleviate any of those things. Daniel had tried unsuccessfully to speak to their hostile escort, but had gotten little more than the name they called themselves. Asking for food, water, rest, or even their heavier garments back had earned the linguist nothing but bruises—from the stupid sticks—and the beginnings of a black eye—from a "misplaced" elbow.

Sweaty, dirty, and sunburned, Vala couldn't even stage a proper sit-down strike, as she and Daniel both had their wrists bound and tethered via long ropes to the narrow hand-drawn cart at the head of the column. For the most part, the guards kept Daniel and Vala walking along with their ropes stretched almost as far as they'd go, but as the party continued to climb the cliffs, the occasional switchback forced the Shan-wi to release the tethers from the cart and guide them by hand.

It was at the beginning of one of these narrow turns that Vala stumbled yet again, a loose rock sliding under her foot the culprit this time. She pitched forward into the guard holding the other end of her rope, knocking the man off-balance and sending them both crashing painfully into the cliff wall. Snarling angrily, the man shoved her off him, releasing the line as he did so.

He'd shoved too hard, though, and Vala had no way to stop her momentum. As she pinwheeled backward, her left foot came down on nothing but air.

* * *

"_Daniel!_"

The panicked scream tore through him, and Daniel did the only thing he could in the circumstances. Ignoring the armed guards, the archaeologist lunged for the rope sliding past his feet. Thankful his captors had let him keep his gloves, he tightened his fingers on the coarse line and braced himself as best as he could.

Vala, he remembered belatedly, was always a lot heavier than she looked.

His boots skidded on the rocky slope, and he fell to one knee trying to regain his balance. Pain shot through the offended joint, but he resolutely dug in further and held on for dear life. A sharp tug on the rope and a short cry announced that Vala's rapid and unintended descent down the cliff had been arrested. Despite the gloves, Daniel's fingers ached from the strain of catching and holding the rope. He closed his eyes briefly, drawing once more upon his "mind over matter" techniques. When he was confident he could ignore the dull pain, he opened his eyes again.

"Vala, are you okay?" he asked, tuning out the voices of their escort. He couldn't spare the concentration translating their words would take, anyway.

"I-I'm not sure," came the shaky reply from below. "Nice catch."

Part of him wanted to sigh in relief; the other part wanted to groan. He was proud of how, in a short span, she'd gone from scared out of her wits to calm enough to joke, but found himself equally annoyed by the inappropriate flippance.

Knowing her bound wrists had to be hurting fiercely—if not sprained out-right—by the sudden stop, Daniel called down for her to try to hold onto the rope with her hands. "I'll pull you up, but if you can sort off walk up the wall while I pull..."

"Got it," she answered, and the rope shifted as she positioned her feet. "Ready as I'll ever be."

Pushing more meditative thoughts through his muscles, Daniel stepped sideways around a nearby bush, using its thick trunk as a makeshift pulley. With his own hands tied, he couldn't pull more than a few inches at a time, but he was determined to keep up a steady pace. "Just hang on tight, Vala. I won't let you fall."

"I know," she answered. "I trust you."

The sincerity in her voice caught him off-guard. Daniel had bollixed this particular first contact situation from the start, but Vala still trusted him, still believed in him. Oddly enough, her trust in him was one of the few things he knew he could rely on, and in the last year, he'd slowly begun to let himself trust her, too. He couldn't lose her now.

"You're almost there," he coaxed, pulling a few more inches of rope through his hands. When Vala's gloved hands finally appeared at the lip of the canyon, Daniel knotted his end of the tether around the base of the hardy bush, then turned around and stepped forward to help her. As he squatted down to catch her hands and help her climb over the edge, he heard footsteps on gravel. _Finally_, one of their guards was going to help.

A moment later, he realized he was wrong yet _again_. Rough hands pushed at the small of his back, and Daniel had no way—and no one—to stop his fall.

* * *

Author's Notes:  
Now THAT's a cliffhanger! *drumbeat cymbal crash*


	3. Part 3 of 4

**Water Over Stone  
**Part 3 of 4

Teal'c held up his closed fist, motioning for a halt. "I believe the remaining members of our escort have made camp just ahead," he softly informed the remainder of his own team.

"Ordinarily, I'd say there's safety in numbers..." Colonel Mitchell began. He didn't have to finish the statement, though, as they all remembered how the Ganar had left them to defend themselves. For the time being, SG-1 was far safer trusting no one but themselves.

Colonel Carter glanced up at the sky. "It'll be dark in a few more hours. We should probably try to find a good place to set up our own camp. It's going to get really cold, really fast."

Teal'c made some swift mental calculations. "If we press onward, we could return to the Ganar village within an hour of nightfall."

The last hour of their trip would likely be just as cold as the start of their mission eighteen hours before, but it would be far more difficult due to fatigue. Teal'c prided himself on his endurance, but he could already feel his muscles aching. The long hike, the ambush, and the worry over the fates of Daniel Jackson and Vala Mal Doran: all were conspiring to sap him of his strength.

And if _he_ was tired, then he knew his human teammates were exhausted.

Colonel Mitchell rolled his shoulders. "I don't know about you two, but I'm beat... but I'd feel a hell of a lot better about making camp if I knew we'd be ready to have a chat with the Ganar elders first thing in the morning."

"I have a few more hours in me," chimed in Colonel Carter, sounding far more energetic than she looked.

Teal'c let his lips curve into a smile. Many times since the fall of the Goa'uld, his fellow Jaffa had asked him why he preferred to remain with his Tau'ri friends, rather than return to live among his own race. To most of his brethren, humans were a lesser race, a species suitable only as slaves and hosts for the Goa'uld. It did not matter that the Jaffa themselves no longer served the Goa'uld, as all they could see was how fragile a human body was compared to a Jaffa's, how short a human's lifespan was, and how weak their regard for one another made them.

These traits had been all-but bred out of the Jaffa in the Goa'uld pursuit of the perfect foot soldier. Hardier constitutions made for warriors who could take more damage and still continue to fight. Longer lifespans meant more years of service to their "gods". Closed hearts owed allegiance only to their Goa'uld masters, and little regard was given to one's fellow warriors.

The Tau'ri had shown Teal'c otherwise, had taught him in ways that not even the wise and kind-hearted Bra'tac could comprehend. The so-called weaknesses of humans were, in fact, their strengths. To compensate for their weaker bodies, humans sharpened their minds. They devised clever tactics and built impressive machines to help them accomplish their goals. They practiced battle maneuvers which emphasized precision strikes and avoidance of injury as opposed to the highly-destructive engagements favored by Jaffa.

A human's shorter lifespan was one "flaw" with which Teal'c had the greatest familiarity. As he had watched his friends grow old and infirm, he had lamented the loss of their youth and enthusiasm. With the rest of SG-1 now young again—and unaware of the lives they'd led aboard the _Odyssey_—Teal'c was better able to appreciate the way they each filled their days with activity and camaraderie. Even when Daniel Jackson and Colonel Carter buried themselves in their respective research projects, their days were fuller than the average day for a Jaffa. The Tau'ri might not live longer than a Jaffa, but they lived _more_.

But of all their defining traits, there was one which Teal'c held as their greatest: their hearts. Time and time again, he had witnessed his human friends perform impossible feats for the sake of friendship and familial love. Sparing a glance at the colonels doggedly keeping pace alongside him, Teal'c knew that both humans would push themselves beyond their physical limits to recover their missing friends.

Daniel Jackson and Vala Mal Doran would do no less for them.

* * *

Vala closed her eyes and pressed her face into the sleeve of her jacket. She couldn't look down, but she couldn't continue upward, either. Her arms trembled, and for a moment, she considered just letting go of her precarious grip on the side of the cliff and plummeting after Daniel. The romantic notion of dying together had always sounded stupid to her, but right now, it didn't seem like such a bad choice at all compared to the sick feeling in her heart.

Daniel... Of all the things he'd endured and survived, it was saving _her_ that had done him in for good.

"Ow," came a familiar groan, sounding surprisingly close.

Or not. "Daniel?"

"Ledge."

She frowned. "Ledge?"

"Landed on one... about fifteen feet down."

"Oh." Relief flooded through her body. "You mean I'd have landed on that ledge if you hadn't caught me?"

"Uh... probably."

Despite the gravity of the situation—no pun intended—Vala began to laugh. "Well, I suppose it's the thought that counts."

Angry voices drifted to her from over the top of the cliff, but Vala didn't understand a word being said. Moments later, a Shan-wi peered over the edge, spotted her and Daniel, and chattered back to his compatriots. A second man appeared instantly, and the duo leaned down and grabbed her by the hands. They were surprisingly strong, and in just a few seconds, Vala was seated on level ground, having the ties about her wrists carefully sliced away. Once the long tether was separated, one end was knotted to a wide leather sling, which was then lowered over the wall.

Someone pulled Vala's gloves off and began to clean and bandage her abraded wrists, but Vala kept her eyes firmly glued to the rescue operation underway for Daniel. Once he was safely at the top, she scrambled to her feet and dashed over to him, enthusiastically wrapping him in a hug. With his hands still tied, he couldn't return the gesture, but Vala didn't care.

He was shaking, and when he swayed and nearly fell, she guided him to sit on the ground. Unable to stop touching him to make sure he was real, she laid one arm across his bowed shoulders, and leaned him against her side. Relaxing a little into her touch, he looked up at the men who'd pulled him up from the ledge, and though Vala didn't understand his words, she knew by the look on his face that he was thanking them.

He'd been pelted with stones, pounced on by a hunting cat, kicked, roughed up, and shoved over a cliff, yet he was _thanking_ them. Daniel would never cease to amaze her.

A Shan-wi man dressed in colorful clothing knelt beside them, a look of barely-restrained fury on his face. At first, Vala thought it was them he was angry at, but an instant later she realized his displeasure was over what had been done _to_ them. From his dress and behavior, he was not a member of the hunting party but a leader of their people, and he was not at all happy about the way his men had been treating the prisoners. Speaking softly to Daniel, he drew his knife and carefully cut away the bindings about the archaeologist's wrists. He spoke for a moment longer, pointing to the trail above, then motioning for the medic to come over and finish wrapping Vala's wrists.

"Tien wanted us to know that the man who pushed you—us—has been punished," Daniel informed her, grimacing as he flexed his hands. "Apparently, he's been instructed to rejoin the hunters and cats down below, and won't be bothering us again."

"Tell Tien I said 'thanks'," she answered distractedly.

Since she couldn't understand the words of their captors anyway, Vala had turned her thoughts inward, puzzling over her reaction to Daniel's fall. It wasn't the first time she thought she'd lost him, but the despair she'd experienced was greater than she could remember it being the last time. Maybe it was because she'd had the rest of the team to draw upon for strength.

Maybe it was because her feelings for him had grown.

"Uh, he wants to know if we can walk," Daniel began, grimacing. "Their village is at the top of the cliff, and they want to get there before nightfall."

Groaning, Vala pushed herself to her feet. She ached all over—as Cameron might say, her bruises had bruises—but she could still put one foot in front of the other. Daniel needed some help getting upright, and didn't look particularly steady once he got there. Vala immediately tucked herself under his right arm, lending her own meager strength to his. "We'll manage," she smiled.

Working together, they followed Tien up the trail.

* * *

The Shan-wi village was poorly-named. It was a _fortress_.

It also wasn't built at the top of the canyon, but rather into the cliff itself. Clever, irregularly shaped facades kept the home of the Shan-wi concealed from a distance, blending it perfectly with its surroundings. Between its natural camouflage and the difficulty of the trail leading up the rock wall, the only way anyone could ever storm this particular castle was to assault it from the air.

Until the _Odyssey_ finished its mission or the _Apollo_ returned from the Pegasus Galaxy, Daniel and Vala could forget about the SGC launching a rescue.

Tien hadn't been particularly chatty—nor had Daniel felt up to holding much of a conversation—but he had explained that the Shan-wi had been surprised to find humans fighting alongside the Ganar. Once Daniel and Vala had been taken prisoner, the attack had been halted, and it was presumed that their three companions were still alive. This news had been taken with much relief by the exhausted duo, as had the promise of warm food and bedding. There would be many more questions later, but for now, they were instructed to rest.

The accommodations to which they were escorted were lacking, however. The Shan-wi idea of a prison cell consisted of a ten foot-deep pit inside one of the cave-buildings. Daniel and Vala used a ladder to reach the bottom, but the wood-and-rope construct was pulled out of the pit once they were there. A few minutes later, a pulley along one wall was used to lower a tray bearing two bowls of meaty stew, a large wedge of cheese, and a pot of clean water. The pallet was lowered a second time to deliver a bundle of bedding, though Daniel had asked for their military-issue sleeping bags. The trust he had been building with Tien went only so far, as it seemed the return of any of their gear was still forbidden.

It wasn't until they began to separate the bedding that Daniel and Vala realized there was only one straw mattress in the pit, and that sleeping separately would leave one of them without that essential barrier between body and cold stone. Shrugging their shoulders at one another, they spread the furs and linens out in a single bed, just barely big enough for the two of them. They then stripped down to undergarments and t-shirts, and crawled beneath the covers.

Despite his exhaustion, Daniel found himself unable to fall asleep, and from the dissatisfied noises Vala was making, she was having similar difficulty. The cave was lit by a fire near the entrance, but the warmth didn't reach the bottom of the pit. As the night grew colder, Daniel and Vala's bodies instinctively migrated toward the nearest heat source: each other.

When they were on their sides, practically nose-to-nose, Daniel rolled his eyes. "This is _such_ a cliché," he joked, knowing he sounded like Jack O'Neill again.

"How so?" Vala asked, wriggling a little more as she tried to get comfortable. Her motions were doing interesting things to long-neglected parts of his body, and he had to draw upon every ounce of self-discipline he possessed to keep from reacting.

"Being forced to share body heat to stay warm," he answered aloud, shifting slightly to put a little distance between himself and Vala.

This would have been _so_ much easier if he'd been trapped with Sam and not Vala. Sam was like the big sister he'd never had—most of the time—and wouldn't bat an eye if his body responded to her close proximity. After ten years fighting side-by-side and back-to-back in various situations, scenarios, and sometimes even stages of dress, the original members of SG-1 shared an ease with one another that went beyond mere friendship. Sure, he'd be embarrassed as hell if he got a hard-on while snuggling with Sam, but she wouldn't tease him unmercifully about it.

She certainly would know better than to keep pressing her body against him.

"You know," Vala mused, "there's more than _one_ way to share body heat." Suddenly, she moved again, grinding her hips against his pelvis.

"Stop it," Daniel growled, pulling away from her as far as he could without leaving the warmth of the furs.

Whether she simply didn't hear his warning or chose to ignore it, Vala provocatively rocked against him again. Clearly, she was trying to get a rise out of him—oh, bad choice of words—and it was working, too. All his determined efforts at maintaining strict control over his body's reactions were failing, fading, falling...

"I said stop!" he shouted, grabbing Vala's shoulders and pushing her away from him before scrambling free of the bedding. Skittering backwards across the pit floor, he kept moving until his back pressed against the frigid wall. With nowhere else to go and his aching muscles protesting the sudden movement, Daniel wrapped his arms around his knees and fought to recover from his momentary panic. What was _wrong _with him?

"What's the matter with you?" Vala demanded.

"With me?" he echoed. "What's the matter with _me?_"

"Yes, you!"

"I told you to stop!" Daniel retorted, finding it easier to lash out than to try to reason out his own turbulent emotions. "_You're_ the one who decided to press the issue."

In the flickering firelight, he could see her eyes roll dramatically. "It's just sex, Daniel."

"And I said 'no'," he repeated.

"Why not?"

He shook his head. "I don't have to give you a reason, Vala. When I say 'no', I expect you to stop, not—"

"Why the hell not?" she demanded hotly. "Am I that repulsive to you? Do you even like women? _What?_"

Daniel's nostrils flared in anger. "No, you're not; yes, I do; and I'll say again: just saying 'no' should be enough. Jeeze, Vala, have I ever given you any indication that I want that from you?"

"And I'll say again, _Daniel_, why the hell not?" Vala snapped. "It's not like I'm asking for a relationship here... what's so wrong about that?"

Still fuming, he made another concerted effort to rein in his raging emotions. "Okay, let's see if I can get this through to you: 'no' means 'no', and it doesn't matter if it's a woman saying it or a man." She didn't seem to be getting it, and he instinctively went for the proverbial jugular. "When you were host to Qetesh, did she ever make you do things with your body that you didn't want to do? Did she ever make your body respond to someone when you didn't want to have sex with them? Did she leave you screaming inside while your body did things that made you sick when you thought about them later?"

Vala's face had gone pale. "D-Daniel," she stuttered, "why are you doing this to me?"

"That's what you were doing to me!" he shouted. "Dammit, Vala, I'm only human... self-control goes only so far, and I sure as hell can't stop my body from reacting when you're trying to... trying to get me to respond. I've... I've been betrayed like that before, Vala, and I don't want it to happen again."

"Again?" she repeated numbly, her eyes still dark and haunted.

Letting out a shuddering breath, Daniel laid an arm across his knees and dropped his head down to rest on his forearm. "Years ago, when the Stargate program was just getting going, we ran into Hathor... or rather, she found us. We didn't know she was really a Goa'uld, at first, and we certainly didn't know... didn't know she had the ability to control men. I _thought_ she was my friend... right up until she forced me to have sex with her."

"Forced?" Vala echoed.

"The ability to control men, remember?" he answered, looking up just long enough to meet Vala's stunned expression. "She had some sort of pheromone gas or something. I was _married_, Vala; I didn't want to betray my wife, but Hathor took control of my body away from me and made me have sex with her anyway... took my 'code of life' to make hundreds of her larvae. Do you have _any_ idea what that's like? To be forced to do something that makes you violently ill when you finally remember how much of an active participant you were in the betrayal of your own body to a Goa'uld's perversions?"

"Yes," she whispered, curling in on herself in a miserable huddle which nearly mirrored his own position. "Oh god, Daniel, I'm so sorry! I didn't know... I didn't..."

"Now you do," Daniel finished, releasing a shaky breath. His limbs were still trembling, and he wasn't entirely sure if it was from the adrenaline, his injuries, or the cold. "Now you know."

As the silence following his accusations lengthened, Daniel closed his eyes and leaned his head against the wall. Vala was right, in a way: to her, it was just sex. Call him idealistic or a romantic fool or _something_, but Daniel didn't believe in meaningless sex; there had to be some underlying connection between the participants. He knew he cared for her a great deal—she was more than a teammate, she was a wonderful friend. The problem was, Vala had a reputation for using men up and throwing them away when she got bored with them.

Daniel wasn't sure he'd survive if he ever let her break his heart.

* * *

Vala turned her face away, letting her curtain of dark hair hide her from Daniel's sight. She couldn't bear to look at him now, afraid she'd see only disgust and loathing on his handsome features. "I'm sorry, Daniel," she choked. "I had no idea you... that you hated me so much."

"What? I don't... I don't hate you."

Tears of anger, frustration, and humiliation were gathering in her eyes. "Then what's wrong with _me?_ Why won't you—" She clamped down on her lower lip with her teeth, trying to still the quaver in her voice while battling to keep her fear and anguish from taking over her.

"I can't, Vala," he answered softly. "I can't do 'casual' relationships; it's all or nothing. I loved... I loved my wife with all my heart and I lost her and I... I just can't open myself up to being hurt like that again. Do you understand? Does that make any sense?"

Unfortunately, it made too _much_ sense. With a sickening feeling, Vala realized that Daniel would never be with her. For a time, she'd fooled herself into believing he might actually see her as something more than just a friend, but after joining his team and spending more and more time with him, she slowly began to accept that he simply wasn't interested in pursuing a relationship with her at all. She'd allowed herself to become friends with him, but like a fool, she hadn't stopped there.

The emotions she'd experienced when she thought he'd fallen off the cliff made more sense now: she'd fallen in love with him. Worse, she'd convinced herself she could live with not having him completely. She thought she could offer herself to him and pretend like it didn't mean anything to her, and that would be enough. Somehow, simply sharing her bed with him would be all that she needed of him.

Daniel, damn him, was right: she couldn't do 'casual' any more than he could. Her brief temptation to throw herself off the cliff after him was proof she didn't want to live without him, and if that wasn't love, what was?

A horrible ache clutching her heart, Vala choked on a sob and buried her face in her hands, giving in to the hated tears. She cried for the love she'd lost and never even had, and wept for all the horrible things Qetesh had done with her body that had left her with a shameful disregard for how beautiful a thing sex—making love—could be. Most of all, she mourned the cruelties of fate, the horrible circumstances that had left Daniel scarred and forever bound to a love _he_ could never have, either.

"Vala?"

It wasn't fair. Vala knew she wasn't perfect, knew she'd done a lot of things in her life she wasn't proud of, but since joining the SGC and the fight to repel the Ori invasion, she thought she'd done a lot of _good_ things, too. At first, her part in the battle had been for herself and for the way the Ori had hijacked her body to sneak one of their own into the galaxy. She fought for Adria, the child who should have been hers but wasn't, and for Tomin, the man she loved for his gentle spirit—a nature which had reminded her of Daniel—but whose religion was slowly corrupting him. After a time, she stopped considering her own goals, and at the end of it all, the one and only person for whom she still fought was Daniel himself.

"Vala? Please look at me."

Shuddering, Vala ground the heels of her palms into her eyes, then turned her body further away from Daniel. She cast about, trying to find something to do, something to keep her from acknowledging Daniel's presence and devolving into an even bigger emotional wreck than she already was.

Strong fingers delicately cupped her chin, turning her around to look at him. Vala tore her eyes away almost as soon as they met his, frightened by the intensity he now showed. She didn't know what he was looking for, but it left her afraid that he'd once again find her lacking.

Soft, dry lips closed over her own, planting a chaste kiss just firmly enough she could taste him, but light enough it felt as no more than the softest whisper. Just as quickly, Daniel withdrew, lightly caressing her jaw. He pressed his forehead against hers, and her hands came up to wrap around his biceps, holding herself in place. For the longest time, they sat in the cold and flickering firelight and let their breaths co-mingle.

"You're shivering," he whispered at last.

"So are you. We should—" She let the intended comment trail off, fearful Daniel would take it the wrong way.

"Go to bed?" he finished, voice tinged with amusement. "Yes, we should... but bed only."

"Bed only," Vala agreed hastily.

* * *

Awkwardly, Daniel wrestled with the furs, trying to not bump into Vala but finding such a task impossible given the limited space. When they were both beneath the covers, they lay back-to-back and tried to warm up again. Finally, Daniel couldn't bear to feel Vala's shivering any longer and twisted around, pulling her into his arms.

"Just don't move so much, okay?"

"Okay," she whispered in reply. "Just one thing... real quick, then that's it."

"Go ahead."

Shifting, Vala turned around to face him, tucking her head against his shoulder and slinging an arm across his waist. "Much better," she sighed.

She was right, and it _felt_ so right to have her cradled in his arms, nestled against him in a perfect fit. Daniel dropped a kiss into her hair and let out a sigh of his own. So much for not falling in love with her...

"I love you."

Surprised, Daniel jerked back, staring down into startled gray eyes. The dim light made it difficult to see behind them, to see what she was really thinking, but then Vala laid a finger over his lips.

"It's okay if you don't—"

"But I do," he interrupted her, stroking along her jaw with the thumb of his right hand. "I didn't want to... I tried to fight it." He chuckled. "Somewhere along the way, you... you wore me down. I'm glad you love me, Vala, 'cause I love you, too."

The normally-verbose Vala didn't say anything at all. Instead, she caught his hand, kissed the palm, then snuggled even closer to him. Exhaling softly, she promptly fell asleep.

Feeling a stupid grin take over his face, Daniel joined Vala in slumber.

* * *

The morning dawned far too early, but not soon enough. No sooner had the first rays of sunlight pierced the sky than Teal'c was rousing his remaining teammates. Sam was sore, tired, and hadn't slept at _all_ well, despite the extra warmth from the gas heater; it was hard to enjoy such comforts when she didn't know how Daniel and Vala were faring.

They ate a quick breakfast, packed up their supplies, then headed into the Ganar village. The team's return was greeted with mixed concern and hostility, which Sam attributed to their having arrived without the escort with whom they'd left. She didn't understand a word being said, but she sure hoped Cam did.

Cam looked extremely uncomfortable in his role as translator-slash-negotiator. "I'm never taking Jackson for granted again," he muttered at one point. It wasn't until after the remainder of their escort arrived in the village that he finally began to get somewhere.

"Get this," he exclaimed in disgust. "The guys who attacked us were _human_. The impression I get is that the Ganar were afraid we'd side with _them_ if it came down to a fight." He paused. "Which it did."

"Are they going to help us or not?" Sam asked, feeling her patience wearing thin.

"Well, if I understood half what I think I did, then there isn't really anything they can do to help. The humans live way the heck up in the hills, and the Ganar seem to think there's no way to get up there without being attacked." He kicked at a loose rock. "I guess we wait for the _Odyssey_ and hope for the best."

"Is there no way of reasoning with the human inhabitants?" asked Teal'c.

Cam rolled his shoulders. "Well, that's just the thing! Norraul said something about always giving them a chance—kinda like how they waited to see what we'd do—but these guys just attack on-sight. They'd _like_ to make friends with 'em, but just can't."

Sam rested her hands atop the butt of her rifle. "You know, what if we go back to the SGC and get a diplomatic team together? See if we can't open a dialogue between the two groups? We can have the _Odyssey_ on stand-by to beam our people out if things get ugly."

"You want us to try to get them to play nice with one another?" the other colonel asked, incredulous. "Sam, these guys have been fighting one another for centuries! That kind of bad blood doesn't go away overnight."

"I know, and there's a lot of risk involved... but if there really is a naquadah mine in those mountains, we're going to need the cooperation of _both_ groups, not just the Ganar."

Seeing the wisdom of her suggestion, Teal'c threw in his two cents. "Would not Daniel Jackson ask us to seek such a solution?"

Cam stared at his teammates. "What, we gonna all start wearing bracelets that say 'What Would Jackson Do?'" He rolled his eyes and turned back to the Ganar elders standing before him. A few brief exchanges later, he faced Sam and Teal'c again. "They're willing to give it a shot." Under his breath, he added, "I just hope the other guys are willing to listen."

* * *

Author's Notes:  
See? No big cliffie today. Last one up tomorrow!


	4. Part 4 of 4

**Water Over Stone  
**Part 4 of 4

Vala woke slowly, feeling aches and pains all over, yet strangely warm and comfortable. It took a moment for her to remember where she was, and once she did, she was afraid to open her eyes and find out none of it was real. Her pillow felt real enough, though, so she carefully cracked one lid.

"Morning," Daniel smiled down at her, then jerked sharply. "Ow! What was that for?"

"Just making sure this wasn't a dream," she smiled, placing her hand back on his chest.

"Traditionally, you're supposed to pinch _yourself_," he griped, rubbing his wounded side.

Vala grinned. "I knew _I_ was real; I just had to make sure _you_ were."

In response, Daniel tilted her head up and kissed her softly at first, then a little more firmly. "That feel real enough?"

"Wonderfully," she purred, snuggling against his side again.

"Good... but I've really, _really_ gotta go pee, so can I have my arm back?"

Reluctantly, Vala sat up, shivering at the cold air outside the fur bedding. "Hurry back," she admonished.

Giving her another quick kiss, Daniel scooted out beneath the covers and headed over to the chamber pot in the far corner. He kept his back to her while he took care of his ablutions, then shuffled back over the bed and started pulling on his clothes. "As much as I'd love to stay in bed all day..."

Vala understood. "Plenty of time to laze around when we get home," she agreed, grabbing her own discarded uniform.

After they were dressed, they sat on the mattress, one of the larger fur coverings draped over their shoulders. It surprised Vala how tactile Daniel was now, as she'd always thought him a man who valued his personal space. As a man in love—and whose love was most certainly returned—he couldn't seem to get enough. By unspoken agreement, they limited themselves to hand-holding, kissing, and a little playful teasing, aware that they could be interrupted at any minute by their Shan-wi hosts.

"Any idea how we're going to get out of here?" Vala asked at one point.

"Well, I don't think there's much chance a rescue party's going to come up here the way we did," Daniel answered, rubbing his thumb in slow circles over her knuckles. "I suppose we can try to talk them into letting us go—"

"Meaning _you_ talk them into letting us go, while I smile a lot and pretend I understand even a little of what's being said."

"—Or we hold out until the SGC sends the _Odyssey_ to beam us out."

"Which could take a few days," she concluded. "I don't know about you, Daniel, but I would _kill_ for a hot shower about now."

"Coffee," he murmured.

"Chocolate," she countered, knowing neither of them could resist that. Daniel chuckled, and Vala grinned. _She_ had made Daniel smile, made him _laugh_. The feeling that knowledge gave her was almost as good as chocolate.

Almost.

Without their watches, the couple had no way of knowing how much time passed, but just as their bellies began to rumble with hunger, someone came in and peered over the edge, and Daniel gave a short reply to the man's inquiry.

"Looks like we have a meeting with the bigwigs," he told her as the ladder was lowered into the pit. "No word on breakfast, though."

"Drat."

Bodies aching from the previous day's activities, they eventually climbed out of their prison and were escorted out into the chilly morning air. The sun was just beginning to come up, casting a pink glow over the mountaintop dwelling. Vala hadn't taken the time to really look at her surroundings the evening before—she was far more concerned with keeping herself upright—but she looked her fill now.

Crude, ugly, foreboding... and really quite impressive.

They were ushered up a long series of cut steps, then directed through an irregularly-shaped archway. A round courtyard lay beyond, and on the other side of it, the first actual "building" Vala had seen. Although no work of art, at least some aesthetic consideration had been made in its construction. Pillars lined the front of the building, and a multi-leveled roof capped it.

The interior of the building was lit with a dozen or more large oil lamps, both resting on the floor and suspended from the ceiling. The floor in the middle of the room was recessed in a circular shape, and a low table and several cushions lay in the middle of the ring.

"This looks familiar," she commented to Daniel, thinking back to their meeting with the Ganar elders.

"Yes, it does," he agreed, lips thinning. Vala recognized the glint in his eye as the look he got whenever he put two and two together and came up with six.

Well, something like that, anyway.

They were seated at the table, then five men—the first man being Tien—entered the room from another door. Not a word was spoken until after they were settled in the cushions opposite Daniel and Vala.

* * *

"_Your presence here is problematic_," began the man seated in the center of the five presumed councilmen.

Daniel's attention was torn away from his study of the building's architecture. "_I assure you, we meant no harm_."

"_Harm?_" echoed the man next to Tien. "_Two score of our finest hunting cats are dead or critically injured. When our people starve for meat, will there still be 'no harm'? When our city falls to the claws of the Ganar, will there be 'no harm' then?_"

He stiffened. "_My people and I believed we were under attack by wild animals up until the moment your hunters began throwing stones at us. We retreated immediately... as soon as it became apparent the Ganar hadn't quite told the truth about what sort of 'dangers' were on the way_."

"_You would trust those beasts?_" asked another councilman, even as the first speaker demanded, "_On the way to where?_"

Seeing Vala tense out of the corner of his eye, Daniel held up his hands placatingly. "_When my team first came to this planet, we thought the only inhabitants were the Ganar_."

"_You are from another world?_"

He nodded his head, pinching the bridge of his nose. "You know, our little goof up on P4M-328 is starting to look better and better all the time," he muttered to Vala, knowing she'd recognize the designation. It was the planet where the team stumbled into a hostage situation and grudgingly had to pretend to be members of a terrorist faction in order to survive. It wasn't the worst of SG-1's hundreds of first contact missions, but it ranked pretty highly on the unofficial "First Contact Situations to Never Repeat" list.

"All we have to do is stay alive long enough for the _Odyssey_ to arrive," Vala reminded him. "The others got away, so they'll head to the SGC, commandeer the ship, and fly on out here to beam us up to safety. Piece of cake, right?"

"Just as long as we do _our _part and stay alive," he agreed with a grimace, then switched back over to the local dialect. "_I'm afraid we've all gotten off to a rather unpleasant start. My name is Daniel Jackson; this is Vala Mal Doran._" Hearing her name, Vala offered up a fetching smile and casual wave. "_We're explorers from a planet called Earth, and we came here through the Stargate._"

"_Stargate?_"

"_Chappa'ai_?" he tried again.

"_You travel the old gods' road?_" Tien asked in surprise.

"Uh... _yes, we do._"

There was a murmur of disquiet, then the man in the center held up his hand for silence. "_You should not have come here._"

"_Why?_"

"_Long ago, our people cast aside the old gods, and we believe they have forgotten us in the generations since. If _you_ have found our world, who is to say the old gods will not find us again?_"

"_They won't_," Daniel answered firmly. "_Look, the Ganar told us this planet was once ruled by Helios, right?_" At the affirming nods, he continued, "_Well, Helios was defeated by another of the Goa'uld—the false gods—Ra. Ra was destroyed ten years ago, and the rest of the Goa'uld have fallen since. Only a handful of their kind remains, and their power is greatly diminished from what it once was. For most, it's all they can do to hold on to the worlds they still possess, let alone attempt to conquer new ones._"

"_For this, we have only your word_," replied the man furthest from Tien.

"_I'm afraid that's all I have to give, at the moment_," Daniel sighed, shrugging his shoulders.

Tien, thankfully, decided to try to get the conversation back on track. "_Councilman Huang asked a question earlier... where was it you and your people were hoping to go?_"

Taking a deep breath, Daniel summarized what the Ganar had told them about the planet's history with the Goa'uld, then explained his team's interest in the abandoned mines. "_If enough of that mineral remains, the people of my world may be interested in a trade agreement... food, medicine, cloth, seeds for crops, whatever's needed._"

The councilman next to Tien looked interested. "_What about your... rattle sticks?_"

That was what the Ganar had called the P90s. "_What about them?_" Daniel asked, cautiously.

"_Would they be considered for trade? Such mighty weapons would do well to defend our hunters and herdsman from attack_."

"_No_." Not if _he_ had anything to say about it. "_What do you have to defend yourselves against, anyway? The Ganar? Any trade agreement between my planet and yours _must_ include the Shan-wi _and_ the Ganar._"

Councilman Huang frowned deeply. "_The Ganar are savage brutes. Why would you wish to trade with them? They have little to offer, and even less they are willing to share_."

"_They were willing to escort us to the mines,_" Daniel pointed out, "_and their elders were receptive to a trade agreement._" He sucked in another breath. "_Actually, it would be good for both of your people if you and the Ganar can establish peaceful relations with one another_."

The Shan-wi councilmen exchanged glances, mixing disbelief with confusion, disdain, and even a little hope. Huang held up a hand to forestall any comments from his fellows. "_We will deliberate on this further. For now, you will remain our guests._"

* * *

Hank Landry was unsure which was worse: when a team was late to return, or early. Either situation could mean bad news, and in the case of the SGC's premier team, usually meant the worst. "Open the iris," he ordered, then braced himself for all manner of mayhem.

Colonel Mitchell strode through the 'Gate, looking rather ragged, but didn't appear to be seriously injured. Behind him, trailed Colonel Carter and Teal'c, both bearing bruises and scrapes similar to their team leader's. Hank guessed Daniel and Vala would be in like condition, and waited for their arrival.

It never came. Instead, the wormhole shut down shortly behind Teal'c, and the dispassionate expressions on their faces suddenly became far more worrisome. Moving down the Control Room stairs, the general entered the 'Gate Room through one of the side doors.

"Where are Doctor Jackson and Miss Mal Doran?" he asked, coming to a stop in front of Colonel Mitchell.

"Well, we're _hoping_ they're still alive," Mitchell answered, peeling off his field cap and scratching at a sunburned ear. "We were ambushed on our way to check out an abandoned mine, and Jackson and Vala were taken."

Hank had heard enough. "Get yourselves checked out, then meet me in the briefing room."

The team nodded their compliance, although clearly uncomfortable with the delay. Hank wasn't about to forego protocol for the sake of getting the situation report an hour earlier, and SG-1 didn't seem to be in a tremendous hurry anyway. Besides, Hank had found himself on the receiving end of a thorough tongue-lashing from Doctor Lam the last time he delayed the post-mission check-up in a non-emergency situation.

Carolyn was so much like her mother at times, it was scary.

Half an hour later, the remaining three-fifths of SG-1 had been released from the infirmary. Hank met them in the briefing room, taking in the dirty, disheveled, but determined faces. He motioned for them to sit, and began the debriefing immediately. As they recounted the team's latest misadventure, Hank couldn't help but mentally shake his head and wonder.

What was it about Daniel and Vala that made the both of them such trouble magnets? Of course, Hank had known when he accepted the command how trouble followed the legendary Doctor Jackson like a faithful—if rather destructive—puppy. In the short time that Vala had been with the SGC—first as an unwelcome "guest", and now as a member—she'd demonstrated a similarly uncanny knack for finding—or creating—trouble in the most innocuous places.

But put the two of them together, and their propensity for meeting with mayhem was greatly increased.

"What makes you think the human population will be willing to listen?" he asked when Mitchell finished explaining the plan. "From the sounds of things, they attacked the Ganar unprovoked."

"Perhaps not," argued Teal'c. "It is possible the ambush was the result of a trespass on their territory."

"Perhaps," Hank agreed, "but I still don't like how the Ganar lied about the expected dangers. If you and your team had known there was a human population, you could have been better prepared for a first contact situation."

"I think it was more a sin of omission than an outright lie," Mitchell corrected, "though that doesn't make it any better, really."

"That's why we're requesting the _Odyssey_ provide back-up, sir," Carter chimed in. "Without an agreement between the two populations, there's no way we'll be able to get to the mine to test it, let alone set up a mining camp if it proves to be viable. If this works, we can get Daniel and Vala back without bloodshed, and possibly gain a new naquadah source in the process."

"And if it doesn't," finished Mitchell, "then we radio the _Odyssey_ for beam-out and pluck the _whole_ team to safety."

There were many things about this plan Hank didn't like—not the least of which was that the team could be killed before they could call for help—but they'd certainly done a lot of thinking, and the lure of naquadah was one thing the Pentagon could rarely resist.

"Very well, then. The _Odyssey _should reach the new colony on M0Q-X42 by late this evening. Once they get their passengers unloaded, it should take only a few hours more to reach P21-663. I suggest you get cleaned up and get some rest: you return to the planet in the morning."

Carter and Mitchell looked a little put-out by the delay, and Teal'c was his usual inscrutable self. Nevertheless, they did as they were told and headed off to get showers, food, and sleep.

Their dedication to their missing teammates couldn't make Hank any prouder.

* * *

"Well, if this is how they treat their guests, I'd _hate_ to see what they do with prisoners," remarked Vala, glaring at what she'd just mentally dubbed the Hard Rock Hotel. This time, at least, someone had seen fit to build a fire in the bottom of the pit and leave a pile of additional fuel—something which looked suspiciously like dried dung—nearby. They'd also been left with a folding privacy screen to place around the chamber pot, simple woolen clothes like the inhabitants of the fortress wore, and—thankfully—food for breakfast.

Daniel didn't comment, unsurprisingly. He'd been off in his own little world since leaving the council chambers, no doubt puzzling over some mystery or another he hadn't seen fit to share with Vala.

"More gruel?" she mumbled around a mouthful of hardboiled egg, gesturing at the bowl Daniel had emptied probably without even tasting a bite of its contents. Not that it had had much taste to begin with, of course.

"No thanks," he answered absently, staring into his cup of water as though it held the secrets of the universe.

"How long do you think the council will take to decide?" she asked. Daniel had at least emerged from his mental meanderings long enough to share the gist of his conversation with the Shan-wi leaders.

"I don't know. Hopefully not long. I'm _hoping_ they'll give this a chance."

Vala snatched the cup from his hands and drained it. "Why should they? From what I've seen, they have a considerable advantage over the Ganar. Those big cats, for one thing, and this fortress? No storming _this_ castle."

"Yeah, I know, but something's been bothering me." He uncurled his legs and stood, beginning to pace the floor. "There's something that's been nagging me since... well, since before we left the Ganar village, actually. Maybe something one of the Ganar said?"

Vala shrugged and lounged back on the soft furs, stretching luxuriously. "You'll have to tell _me_, Daniel; I don't speak the language."

He whirled suddenly. "The language! That's it, Vala! The Ganar have their own language, so why do some of them speak the same one as the Shan-wi?"

"Know thy enemy?" she guessed.

"Possibly, but I'm thinking it goes further back than that. The Ganar _waited_ to see if we'd attack them, but they were prepared to defend themselves if necessary. From what we've seen of the Shan-wi—well, the hunters, anyway—_they_ attack the Ganar on sight. When—and how—would the Ganar elders have learned the Shan-wi language?"

She rolled her shoulders. "Maybe they've taken some of the Shan-wi captive."

"_Maybe_ they used to be allies," Daniel hypothesized, eyes gleaming. "Both the Ganar _and_ the Shan-wi claim to have thrown the Goa'uld off this planet... well, the Shan-wi said they rejected the old gods, while the Ganar said they defeated the Jaffa guards left behind by Helios. But what if they worked _together_ to get rid of the Jaffa?"

Propping herself up on one elbow, Vala stared at the pacing anthropologist, realizing he wasn't about to let go of this mystery any time soon. "So why are they at each others' throats now?"

"I don't know," he sighed in frustration. "It's the one part of this that doesn't make a lot of sense. I'm also trying to figure out what the Shan-wi would get out of this arrangement if they _do_ decide to give peace a chance."

"Food," Vala blurted, sitting up.

"What?"

"There were only a few pieces of vegetable in last night's stew, and other than today's pitiful pot of porridge, no grains. No fruit either day."

"They live in the mountains," Daniel mused, "so there isn't much of anywhere for growing crops. One of the councilmen said something earlier about their people relying on the hunting cats to catch their meat, so what domesticated stock they _do_ have is reserved for milk-giving and egg-laying."

"Now that I think about it, there are considerable similarities in architecture," he continued, eyes going to the ceiling as though he could see through the rock to the council building. "These two people used to have a united culture, one which shared language and architecture. Something happened between them to split them up. The Shan-wi took refuge in the mountains, while the Ganar continued to raise crops and herd animals on the plains. _Now_ it seems like the _Ganar_ have the better end of the deal, though it's very likely the hunters and cats attack Ganar herds to get what they need. If that's the case—"

Vala dearly loved Daniel, but it drove her to distraction when he went off on one of his brainstorming sessions. It was one thing when he was discussing the topic with someone else, but another when he talked to _himself_. Rising to her feet, Vala walked over to the linguist, pulled his head down, and laid a brain-melting kiss on him.

When she finally let him go, Daniel stared dumbly down at her. "What was that about?"

"Sometimes, Daniel, you talk too much," she teased.

He rolled his eyes, though Vala could see he did so good-naturedly and not with his old exasperation. "Well, that's _one_ way to shut me up."

"Um-hmm," she agreed cheerfully. "If I'd known it worked so well, I would have tried it a long time ago."

He wrapped his arms around her waist. "You _did_ try it a long time ago... well, kissing me, but not with the intent of shutting me up."

"Oh, yes, our first kiss aboard the _Prometheus_. I had hot dreams about that for _months_."

"So did I," he grinned sheepishly. "So, um, if you don't want to talk about the Ganar and the Shan-wi, what _do _you want to talk about?"

"Talking?" she sighed.

"Or we could play 'I Spy' or 'Twenty Questions' or something like that... unless you've got a better way to pass the time."

"We could have sex," Vala blurted. As soon as the usual, flippant response was past her lips, she winced and conked herself on the forehead self-consciously. "I didn't mean it like that."

"I know you didn't," Daniel soothed, putting a hand at the back of her neck and hugging her to him. "Unfortunately, I don't have anything with me, and I'm not about to risk getting you pregnant."

She smiled up at him. "Oh, Daniel, there's a wonderful branch of Tau'ri science which involves the creation of some rather _marvelous_ pharmaceuticals."

"Drugs?" he blinked.

"Did you know that every female member of the SGC who actively participates in off-world missions is given the opportunity to receive some of these fantastic medicines? There's one called... oh, depot-pro-something-or-another, which quite ensures that I'm not getting pregnant anytime soon. Unless, of course, there's an Ascended being involved again, and if that's the case, Daniel, you've definitely been holding out on—_mmph!_"

When he finally ended the kiss, Daniel laughed against her cheek. "Sometimes, Vala, you talk too much."

Neither of them talked for a while afterward.

* * *

Cam shifted his weight impatiently, anxious for the dialing sequence to finish and open the wormhole back to '663. General Landry had _said_ they could return to the planet in the morning, but by Sam's calculations, 'first thing in the morning' would have had them arriving in the middle of the local night. Instead, they'd had to wait until nearly midday, which left Cam itching to go. A glance at Sam showed her anxiety, and of course Teal'c was... Teal'c.

The wormhole roared open, and he barely waited for Landry's farewell benediction before trotting up the ramp and through. The air on the other side of the 'Gate was just as cold as he remembered, and he immediately set about protecting his face from the chill. Moments later, the 'Gate shut down, and he turned to face the remaining two members of SG-1, plus SG-3 and Doctor Smith.

Cam toggled his radio. "_Odyssey,_ this is Colonel Mitchell, do you read?"

"Loud and clear," came the reply from Colonel Davidson, the ship's commander. "Your transponders are also showing up clearly on our sensors."

"What about Jackson and Vala?"

"Affirmative. We have both their signals just a few klicks from your location." There was a pause. "I'm sure you'll be glad to hear that we saw movement from them last night: they were heading your direction."

Cam swapped looks of relief with Sam. "Well, let's hope that's good news," he answered Davidson. "While we're at it, let's hope we don't have to call you boys for a quick pick-up later. Mitchell out."

"You think Doctor Jackson and Miss Mal Doran managed to get away?" Reynolds asked.

"It's possible," he replied, rolling his shoulders. "Let's move out."

They made good time getting back to the Ganar village, and Cam quickly introduced the elders to Doctor Smith, the diplomat sent along to help with the formation of a peace agreement between the Ganar and the human inhabitants. Calvin Smith was one of the first IOA attachés Cam actually liked, and that was mainly because Smith had admitted his interest in Chinese language and culture had come from a childhood love of cheesy Kung Fu movies.

That—and the fact that Jackson had hailed him as an old friend from college—had put him in the good books of many members of the SGC.

Smith picked up the Ganar dialect fairly quickly, then began asking questions he deemed necessary to establish the terms of the agreement. For the most part, Cam stayed out of it, but he could see the elders beginning to get a little impatient with all the questions. Sure, it was fascinating to know that the average Ganar could live for roughly three hundred years, but what did _that_ have to do with the treaty?

"Smith, do you have enough to get started or not?" he asked in exasperation, after Norraul shot him a look of annoyance.

"For the Ganar, yes, but I still don't know what the—Shan-wi?—what their demands or needs are going to be."

"And you think you're going to get that from pestering the Ganar?"

Smith flushed. "Well, no, probably not, Colonel. But the way these people live! It's like—"

The fur-covered entrance was pulled open, and Teal'c emerged through the doorway. "Colonel Mitchell, we have a situation."

"What is it, Teal'c?"

"A large party approaches from the west. There are a number of felines leading the way."

Cam swore. "Attack party?"

"We cannot be certain at this time."

"_What is the trouble?_" asked Norraul, rising to his feet. The other elders rose beside him.

"_Looks like a big group of Shan-wi are heading this way,_" Cam answered. Then, to Teal'c, he asked, "How long before they get here?"

"Perhaps an hour, maybe less. Colonel Reynolds and his team are attempting to conceal—"

Their radios crackled. Cam waited, but when he heard nothing more, he squeezed the push-to-talk. "Reynolds, say again."

"That wasn't me, Mitchell," Reynolds responded immediately.

"Wasn't me, either," answered Sam.

The radio crackled again. "...son to Mit... Sam? Teal'c?"

Cam could have leapt for joy. "Jackson, is that you?"

"Mitch... your voice! Vala …ming in, so don't shoot."

"Say again, Jackson, we didn't catch all that."

"I said, Vala and I are in that big group coming in, so don't shoot."

Sam's voice floated over the radio. "Are you two all right?"

"We're fine, Samantha," answered Vala. "Daniel has these boys practically eating out of his hands, and we're hoping the Ganar will be interested in hearing what they have to say."

Cam laughed. "Well that's real funny, 'cause we'd just finished convincing the Ganar to see about having a little friendly chat with the Shan-wi."

"Really?" Jackson asked. "That's, uh, that's really good." There was a long pause. "Actually, the Shan-wi want to know if you'd be willing to meet us half-way. They're putting a lot of trust in me and Vala, but I think they'd feel better if we met on more neutral ground."

"Jackson, you've managed to bring the mountain to Mohammed... I think I can get the Ganar to meet you out on the plain."

Shaking his head, Cam turned to the waiting elders and began to explain.

* * *

"Basically, sir, we're getting our cake and eating it, too," Cameron concluded.

Vala beamed with pride, not because she had had much of anything to do with the negotiations, but her Daniel had. She figured she was justified in basking in his job well-done. It wasn't as though Daniel was going to do it himself.

"Well, there's still a _lot _of work to be done," Daniel corrected. "The Ganar elders were children when Helios was overthrown, and while they remember being allied with the Shan-wi, it's going to take some time before they'll trust them again. It's been several generations for the Shan-wi, though, and no one's quite sure when they broke with the Ganar or why. Both sides have nearly three hundred years of mistrust to overcome before we can count this treaty as a rousing success."

"Still, the _Odyssey_'s scans detected sizeable deposits of trinium in the vicinity of the mine," chimed in Samantha. "If the treaty goes through as expected, then we just might have found ourselves a new trinium source."

Landry gave a small smile of amusement. "We'll leave that up to Doctor Smith and SG-9. Colonel Mitchell, Doctor Jackson, excellent work."

"Thank you, sir!" Cameron exclaimed brightly.

"Thank you, General," added Daniel, looking a little uncomfortable with the praise.

Vala decided she liked the way embarrassment looked on Daniel. He'd been especially adorable after the Shan-wi councilmen had entered the Hard Rock Hotel and caught the two of them making out in their little fur love-nest. Daniel had been mortified, but the councilmen had been relieved: apparently, catching their captives in such a compromising situation had convinced them Daniel and Vala were human, dispelling their previously-unvoiced fears that they were Goa'uld.

After the blush had faded a few kilowatts, Daniel had been able to present his hypothesis regarding the former state of affairs between the Ganar and the Shan-wi. He'd then promised—aka "lied through his teeth"—that the Ganar were just as interested in ending the conflict between their two peoples. Discovering that the rest of SG-1 had been working the Ganar side of the equation had been a stroke of luck—or maybe just excellent teamwork—and left the Shan-wi with the impression that Daniel was a miracle worker.

"You all look like you could use some rest," Landry continued. "Doctor Lam assures me none of you have any serious injuries—" he gave both Daniel and Vala a deliberate stare "—so I'm putting you all on stand-down for a week. Dismissed."

As soon as the office door closed behind Landry, Teal'c turned to face Daniel. "I believe congratulations are in order."

"What?" Daniel coughed.

Vala laughed and threaded her fingers through Daniel's. "Come on, Daniel, Muscles can read you like a book."

"It's all the smiling you've been doing in the last few hours," Samantha explained.

Daniel rolled his eyes, but gave Vala's hand a squeeze. "Well, Mitchell, be sure and let us know if you think Vala and I are compromising the team in any way."

Across the table, Samantha grinned broadly and elbowed the gaping Colonel Mitchell. "Pay up, Cam."

"Damn it," Cameron swore, digging in a pocket and drawing out a wadded up bill. "You just cost me twenty bucks, Jackson... is that compromising enough?" The rest of the team laughed. "Oh, and I'm glad for the both of you, too."

"Me too," Samantha smiled, shoving her winnings in her pocket.

Teal'c bowed. "As am I." Rising gracefully, the Jaffa began to leave the room, but then turned back and stared directly at Vala. "I believe you now have your answer, Vala Mal Doran."

"What answer?" Daniel muttered.

"I'll tell you later," she promised, knowing she had plenty of time. After all, she and Daniel were apparently starting their _second_ life together.

* * *

Epilogue

He was sure they were a sight to see: both of them sported sunburns, bruises, and cuts; Vala's sleeveless blouse showed off the rope burns on her wrists; and Daniel's glasses seemed to emphasize his spectacular black eye. On seeing Vala's wounds, the waiter's hands curled into fists, ready to challenge the apparent abuser across the table. The look of anger faded to astonishment when he then took in Daniel's less-than-pristine condition and the devil-may-care smiles on both their faces.

As luck would have it, it was the same waiter who'd taken their drink orders the _last _time they were here. "Still have those passion fruit martinis?" Vala asked hopefully.

Later, they'd steal bites from each other's entrées, share dessert, and argue over who had the privilege of paying since they _both_ had lost the bet. Or maybe they'd both won. In the end, Daniel would win that particular battle, but Vala would get to pay for their movie tickets, popcorn, and sodas.

One thing Daniel was adamant about was that Vala was _not_ to head to the ladies' room without him as an escort, as he didn't want her to get kidnapped again and spoil the whole evening. He had plans that went beyond dinner and a movie, and he was pretty certain Vala would like what he had in mind. In the morning, he'd give her a key to his apartment, ask her to move in with him, and refuse to take 'no' for an answer.

He could be pretty stubborn, too.

* * *

Author's Notes:  
Thaaaaaaat's all folks!


End file.
